Published December 13, 2022
On 16 December 2022 the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP) is contesting, disrupting and reconciling the Mapungubwe narratives in our annual Reconciliation Day event. The multifaceted event includes a performance lecture by Nolan Oswald-Dennis, the launch of the first Mapungubwe Children’s Book and the representational sound scape Symphonies of Mapungubwe curated by Azah Mphago. History is never neutral, and our annual event aims to create and foster a space that bridges Mapungubwe's academic, social and artistic history.
As Javett-UP, we are committed to interaction, participation, and collaboration where no single language of ‘truth’ is prominent. This event aims to acknowledge and profile the significance of the Mapungubwe Collection: National Treasures, currently on exhibition at the Javett-UP Tower. Mapungubwe is a contested historical site that requires a “reconciling”. Mapungubwe is significant to the regional focuses of social interconnectedness and remediation of our collective, even in contested histories within a contemporary academic and artistic context.
The installation comprises the iconic gold collection and select national heritage ceramics that indicate southern Africa's creative, indigenous pre-colonial histories. The National Treasures exhibition is conceptualised as an abstract topography of time, landscape (space), and history narrated through academic research and archival memory from the Mapungubwe Archive at the University of Pretoria.
Through this history and this exhibition, Javett-UP becomes an entry point in engaging with contested histories of our region and facilitating dialogues that encourage critical artistic, scientific and spiritual engagements with the site of Mapungubwe and the National Treasures collection. These critical approaches will help liberate the forgotten histories of Mapungubwe and simultaneously create spaces for engagement with ever-evolving African narratives from and beyond academia.
11:30 -12:30 Performance Lecture by Nolan Oswald-Dennis
In this lecture, Nolan explores Mapungubwe as an architectural site in what he terms reverse archaeology. Mapungubwe forms part of a complex of over 500 stone palaces across Southern Africa.
11:30 - 13:00 Launch of Mapungubwe Children’s Book
Our 2021 Visionary Award recipients, The Pre-Empt Group, whose exhibition Buffer Zones focuses on Mapungubwe, have partnered with Javett-UP to create a colouring and activity book about Mapungubwe. The book is for pre-schoolers and learners in the foundation phase. This book is one of the first of its kind and creates an interactive connection for young children to the history of Mapungubwe.
14:00 - 15:00 Ngoma za Mapungubwe/Symphonies of Mapungubwe curated by Azah Mphago
We end the day with a performance by a trio curated by Azah Mphago. Siya Makhuzweni on trombone and Vocals, Sibusile Xaba on Guitar and vocals and Azah Mphago on Ngoma drums/various instruments and vocals. Ngoma za Mapungubwe/Symphonies of Mapungubwe is a ritual performance reimagined as spiritual and cosmological representation through the use of clinical improvisation and sonic bridges.
ABOUT THE MAPUNGUBWE COLLECTION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA
The Mapungubwe National Treasures gold collection has been in the care of the University of Pretoria since the 1930s. Archaeological excavations began during the Great Depression (1929-1934). A time when the economic impact led to significant political changes in South Africa. The excavations, led by the University of Pretoria, revealed the oldest known refined and stratified civilisations in southern Africa, dating to between CE 1000 and CE 1300. Today, Mapungubwe Hill is a natural and cultural landscape declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Mapungubwe Hill is centrally located at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo Rivers, where the colonial borders of Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe meet.
“RECONCILING” HISTORY- THE ANNUAL JAVETT-UP MAPUNGUBWE CELEBRATION
PROGRAMME
11:30 -12:00
Drawing from ongoing research on Mapungubwe as an extra-historical site of being and becoming, and a short film-in-progress titled ‘specifications for a reverse archaeology’ irrevision(01) is a 30 minute multimedia meditation on landscape, collective forgetting, and archaeology of possible futures. This research is funded as part of the Hartwig Art Foundation’s Art Production | Collection Fund, NL.
Nolan Oswald Dennis (b. 1988, Zambia) is an interdisciplinary artist working and living in Johannesburg, South Africa. Their practice explores what they refer to as “a black consciousness of space”: the material and metaphysical conditions of decolonisation. Dennis’ work questions the politics of space (and time) through a system-specific rather than site-specific approach. They are concerned with the hidden structures that pre-determine the limits of our social and political imagination. Through a language of diagrams, drawings and models, they explore a hidden landscape of systematic and structural conditions that organise our political sub-terrain. Systems frame this sub-space with multiple transverse realms (technical, spiritual, economic, psychological, etc.). Therefore, Dennis’ work can be seen as an attempt to stitch these, sometimes opposed, systems, sometimes complimentary, together. For example, they read technological systems alongside spiritual systems and combine political fiction with science fiction.
11:30- 13:00 Launch of Mapungubwe Colouring Book
The 2021/22 Visionary Award recipients, The Pre-Empt Group, whose exhibition Buffer Zones is a result of their ongoing research on the histories of Mapungubwe, have partnered with Javett-UP to create a colouring and activity book about Mapungubwe. The book is for pre-schoolers and learners in the foundation phase. This book is one of the first of its kind to interact with the historical and present meaning of the Mapungubwe, the World Heritage Site.
The story of Mapungubwe has mostly been told from an adult perspective, but more child-focused information still needs to be created and developed. This collaboration aims to bridge that gap and is a STEAM (Science, Technology Engineering, Arts and Maths) based educational project.
The aim is to publish in various local languages so that children will learn the history of Mapungubwe. In addition, the book will be filled with visuals of Mapungubwe’s historical artefacts, such as the gold rhino, bowls, clay pots, and figurines.
We are partnering with community members from Hammanskraal, and they will join us on-site at Javett-UP to launch this wonderful project.
14:00 - 15:00 Ngoma za Mapungubwe/Symphonies of Mapungubwe curated by Azah Mphago
We end the day with a Mapungubwe-themed, interactive sonic performance curated by Azah Mphago. Ngoma za Mapungubwe/Symphonies of Mapungubwe is a ritual performance reimagined as spiritual and cosmological representation through the use of clinical improvisation and sonic bridges. Azah is joined by Siya Makuzeni on trombone and vocals, Sibusile Xaba on Guitar and vocals and Azah will be playing Ngoma drums and various instruments and vocals.
This experience intends to explore collective memory through the creation of timelines of Ngoma/Song.
Inzalo Yelanga(The birthing) Sola Monogram
Through sonic ritual, we explore multiple birthing of the Sun(Ra) from absolute blackness by the Queen of Heaven Mwali we Denga. The African monarch has always been a divine manifestation rooted in African spirituality. Celebrating the human life form.
The dance of Tshi-Tshugulu (Ngoma dza Mapungubwe)
Tshugulu which means Rhino. This represents fertility and Wildlife that co-existed in Mapungubwe. The Rhino is also one of the artefacts found buried at Mapungubwe Heritage Site. The sonic will celebrate the vegetation, climate and abundant life of Mapungubwe as the epic civilization rose, we celebrate fertility, and the powerful and majestic mother Rhino.
Azah is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, musical director, cultural activist, educator and philanthropist from the South African Jazz capital Mamelodi in Pretoria. In 2021, Azah released an album Ngoma Dza Mapungubwe that pays homage to African Civilizations.