Three land artists from Tankwa Artscape  2020 residency reveal illuminating concepts about identity and landscape.

The Tankwa Artscape is an artists' residency in the Northern Cape region of the Tankwa Karoo desert: https://tankwaartscape.co.za

"Imagine a desert floor, undisturbed by human traffic. It’s not the absence of life that is so dramatically visual. It is a few million years old retrospective of ancient seabed and cataclysmic geological events in Earth history, and the footprint of storms and water flow in the riverbeds. Vast pans nudge aside scrub and vlei and gentle hills and land, which drop outside of the quick glance, towards a perimeter of deep-set mountain horizon..."

Kim Goodwin Transported his foundry this year to the desert, to use an ancient technique for sculpting bronze in the earth. His first land art were 3 giants woven in wattle, called The Fear Gods. “People talk of this place as a ‘heart opening place’… “ He also talks about AfrikaBurn’s ideas for ‘The Ephemeral’ - treading lightly on the earth: “We get attached to THINGS, he says. When we were nomadic, we embraced change, we were less attached to permanency.” He explains how the story of the first human beings that live here captured his attention - in Pippa Skotnes’ book ‘Claim To The Country’, and subsequently built a monument in 2016 at AfrikaBurn, to the |Xam! non-existent now, in the Tankwa. 

See: https://www.afrikaburn.com/binnekringblog/humans-of-afrikaburn-kim-goodwin

Nomusa Mtshali Artscape 2021 included a Zulu artist, Nomusa Mtshali who also IDENTIFIES as gender neutral. Her concept of identity is rooted in the idea of a self that is not tied to the genitals! Her WORK is all about the provocation that invites questions about identity. THEY created an ‘alter-ego’ called TITANIUM, who wears a beard and often a skirt - sometimes a pink priest’s collar. She once called her exhibition “UZulu” (Heaven), with its focus on spirit/soul as the essence of identity (as opposed to gender). She explains how Zulu traditional culture is more accepting of the ‘inkonkoni’ (gay/gender ambiguous - the word  mean ‘blue wildebeest’, which is not to live in homosexual relationships.). She also speaks with personal knowledge about healers and spirits that were part of her own family. 

See: https://www.kznsagallery.co.za/Artists/Profile/641/nomusa-mtshali

Kali (named after the goddess of creation and destruction!) Who wants to LOSE HERSELF, not find herself… to get to the point where there are NO LANDMARKS. Her work is photographic and she ‘light paints’ at night, becoming ghostly in the photo, and melting INTO the environment.

Kali's website: https://www.kali.co.za

For a visual feast, visit the Tankwa Artscape's Instagram page:
https://www.instagram.com/tankwaartscape/

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