Malebona Maphutse

Born in South Africa, 1994

Lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa

Through print, video, poetry and installation, Malebona’s many interests have manifested into a complex matrix involving the existence of bodies’ historical, physical and spiritual existences in and around her. She has been investigating how bodies have passed, impacted merely existence and will encounter spaces – to understand the politics of space. Malebona’s inspiration lies at the zenith of infinite, but probable, options that can be drawn from these spaces. Through this form of investigation, she has gone on to explore a number of questions and situations that surround bodies.

“The ritual in spirituality engagements that form in spaces inform a number of politics and I sort to divulge into these in order to create time-landscapes. I have begun to intertwine the mentioned politics in order to emphasize and rethink ways in which these bodies exist within but not limited to a South African context. This, to me, is a form of knowledge making and a recognition of different ritualistic practices in which the black female body exists and continues to morph. Mamoloyi is one of the ways in which I explore the above. In creating Mamoloyi I have sort to understand rituals as a means to rebuild, recreate and rethink our future, present and past in setting in flux, timelines that are convoluted and cyclic. The function of my work is to understand and create time-landscapes that provide options for the moment before and afterwards”.