#kiahenda

Kiluanji Kia Henda's project Icarus 13: Narratives of Progress from Elsewhere tells the story of a fictional space mission sponsored by the country of Angola. It consists of a series of photographs of real sites in Angola which Henda recontextualizes to fit his narrative. For example, the building depicted in Astronomy Observatory is actually an unfinished outdoor theater that was abandoned during the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002). Launch from Icarus 13 is an image of the sky the night that Angola qualified for the 2006 World Cup. The project is a reflection on Angola’s journey as a post-colonial country.

The title of Henda’s work is a reference to the Greek myth warning against hubris. In the story, Icarus' father invents a pair of wings that allow humans to fly. Before Icarus is able to use them, his father warns him not to fly too close to the sun, as the heat will melt the wings. Icarus refuses to heed his father's advice and flies too high, melting the wings and plummeting to his death. Henda's Icarus can be seen as a reworking of this myth. The edifice pictured in the photograph The Spaceship from Icarus 13 is an unfinished Russian structure holding the body of independent Angola's first president and influential poet Agostinho Neto (1922-1979). It reaches toward the sky, dwarfing neighboring buildings. Tall monuments have been used in many cultures to assert sovereignty and intimate a proximity to divinity. Here, Henda presents it as a spaceship. Manmade devices that can travel the cosmos are commonly used in speculative art to connotate humanity’s potential to dominate nature. Henda’s “spaceship” is made from steel, a byproduct of iron, and covered in diamonds. These two resources are prevalent in Angola. Iron was once a major export from the country but a lack of infrastructure caused Angola to stop mining it. Diamonds mines flourish, making Angola the world’s third largest producer of the gemstone.