I must try and get to see this. It sounds relevant to my work this year.
The phrase 'lens-based' is very descriptive as it assumes that there is a particular focus for the group.
The terms 'invisible world' and 'otherworldly realm' could in my case, refer to the world of the non-human living other, and to a transcendental realm of the departed human others.
The media used are appealing ..."experimental film, immersive installation, performance, sound and narration."
The artists depict how "ritual, devotion and acts of remembrance can offer connectedness, bring restoration or provide alternate ways of seeing oneself within the cycle of life."
Participating lens-based artists include Gladys Kalichini, Latedjou, Sekai Machache, Nyancho NwaNri, Pamina Sebastião, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Helena Uambembe.
Speaking in Tongues By Kei Miller, 2007 This poem begins in 1987 My grandmother dragged us to meet the Lord under a tent in St. Catherine. From her I trace the heritage of standing spellbound As women worship. Always I am on the outskirts. I remember my grandmother unbecoming The kind of woman who sets her table each Sunday, Who walks up from the river, water balanced easily On her head. My grandmother become, instead, all earthquake- tilt and twirl and spin, Her orchid-purple skirt blossoming. She became grunt and rumble- sounds You can only make when your shoes have fallen off And you’re on the ground Crying raba and yashundai, robosei and Babababababababba. Years later a friend tells me Tongues is nothing but gibberish- the deluded Pulling words out of dust. I want to ask him What is language but a sound we christen? I would invite him to a tent where women Are tearing their stockings, are on the ground Pulling up fresh words to offer as doves to Jehovah. I would ask if he see no meaning here And if he never had the urge to grunt An entirely new sound. The poem, always, Would like to do this, always wants to break From its lines and let a strange language rise up. Each poem is waiting on its own Day of Pentecost To thrash, to robosei and yashundai, And the poem will note care that some walk past, Afraid of the words we try out on our tongues Hoping this finally is the language of God, That he might hear it and respond.
Credit: ‘Speaking in Tongues’ from There is an Anger That Moves (Carcanet Press, 2007), Kei Miller, 2007.