territorial hope

“After tragedies, one has to invent a new world, knit it or embroider, make it up. It’s not gonna be given to you because you deserve it; it doesn’t work that way. You have to imagine something that doesn’t exist and dig a cave into the future and demand space. It’s a territorial hope affair. At the time, that digging is utopian, but in the future, it will become your reality.”

— Björk

When the red-red soil arrived a while back at Oliewenhuis Art Museum, something stirred inside of me. I knew instantaneously that it was my deep connection to my earliest childhood ... the red earth from Bulawayo. As a young child, my inner and expressive worlds were layered within this mineral-rich soil. It was myself.

On arrival at Oliewenhuis and finally being in her physical Presence, I was ignited with a deep-knowing that I needed to honour her. I needed to pay my respect, with humility. Taking off my shoes, I buried my face within her, opening my heart-space into her as holding space, as the safety of the Mother she has always been to me. But more importantly, it was about asking for forgiveness ... for the colonial atrocities and cultural erasures linked to Land. It is about me understanding that I, from voortrekker-settler lineage, live on the sovereignty of indigenous land.

It is about honouring.

It is about decolonisation.

it is about a territorial hope.

It is about restitution.

image credit: MyMalaika_Photography