Here I Stand

2021

Digital collage, 300 x 250 cm, and audio installation,
1 min 51 sek

Here I Stand is a life-sized print that directly confronts colonial history and how it hovers over us. The
contemporary silhouette of the artist is staged to mirror the colonial relief still visible on the streets of central Gothenburg. Her use of collage merges geographies, namely Sweden and South Africa, and puts them into relationality. Her work focuses on the questions “Am I the only one seeing these images and wondering how they are still here? Why is this violence still echoing in my memory?” This interrogation rises in defiance of the process of national colonial pride upon which states are still being built. The artist’s practice is often combined with actions of engagement in the daily realities of a segregated city.

“Everyday visuals, often left unnoticed, even the most harmful of them all. A red thread linking the past, present and potential future experience of the brown identity (POC) in Gothenburg, highlights the existence of ongoing violent colonial power in everyday life. It’s painful to leave home, cross oceans and be confronted by it.”
(Nontokozo Tshabalala)

Nontokozo Tshabalala is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, Afrofuturist, and designer. Born and raised in South Africa, she uses her work as an avenue for posing deeper questions about her identity and the black experience wherever she goes. Inspired by her nephew, Siyamthanda a.k.a Ncufi, she writes and creates from a place of curiosity, naivety, and instinct and uses colour to express the happiness she wishes to share with the world.