INTRODUCTION TEXT
Kapwani Kiwanga Remediation
The exhibition Remediation focuses on Kiwanga’s most recent research into how humans and the natural environment navigate tensions between toxicity and regeneration. Interested in how, over the course of history, the earth has been treated in violent, but also remedial ways, by humankind and by natural phenomena, Kiwanga investigates how these events and their intended outcomes, can result in different repercussions
Kiwanga’s artistic practice has long underscored the importance of nature’s role in determining the course of history not only through evolution, but through nature’s ever-shifting response to human intervention. As she has delved more deeply into specific environmental events and organic qualities, Kiwanga’s installations and sculptural gestures have become increasingly alluring, both physically and aesthetically. They arouse our curiosity through colour, form and texture, while exposing how destinies of power and self-interest preside over the natural world.
Throughout the exhibition there are new works by Kiwanga, several of which are site-specific and made in response to MOCA’s industrial past Kiwanga also references the city of Hamilton, where she grew up, and in particular Hamilton’s botanical garden, which has been nurtured in close proximity to a prominent industrial area. These sites’ industrial histories, and their afterlife in the present, inform the exhibition title Remediation. Kiwanga’s research into the use of filtration systems and plant life to cleanse environmental toxins, is prevalent in several of the new works, including a pool, a window intervention, shade-cloth sculptures and a series of vivariums
The commissions are exhibited in dialogue with existing artworks and new versions of ongoing bodies of work Through this broader curated selection, Remediation expands on Kiwanga’s research into how botany has long held a relationship to both exploitation and acts of resistance and how plant life has and may intervene in the rejuvenation of contaminated environments.
Kiwanga is an artist who has emerged in recent years as a highly acknowledged figure within the international contemporary art scene Drawing on her education, experiences, ongoing research and commitment to observation, Kiwanga produces work across a wide variety of artistic mediums to explore the plurality of history
After completing studies in Anthropology and Comparative Religion at McGill University, with a focus on medical anthropology and a period working as a documentary director in the UK, Kiwanga turned to the visual arts and attended École normale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where she is now based. In 2018, she received both the inaugural Frieze Artist Award (USA) and
the Sobey Art Award (Canada); in 2020 she won the Prix Marcel Duchamp (France); and in 2024 she will represent Canada at the 60th Venice Biennale
Remediation at MOCA is curated by November Paynter, chief curator and associate director
The exhibition is co-organized by MOCA Toronto and Remai Modern, Saskatoon, where it will be presented in fall 2023.
Elliptical Field
2023
Steel structure, sisal
Kiwanga’s interest in the historical and symbolic effect of materials is demonstrated through a site-specific arrangement of steel compositions covered in sisal fibre.
The golden fibre, harvested from the botanical plant Agave sisalana, is typically spun to make rope and twine Kiwanga describes seeing large plantations of sisal in Tanzania, where her paternal family resides Agave is not native to Africa and was first brought illegally to the continent by German plantation owners who began to develop the crop on a large scale. It has since become one of the major export economies and just last year the government of Tanzania declared a commitment to increasing sisal yield.
Kiwanga’s interest in the plant was piqued by research into how the introduction of this alien species to Africa traces political and economic movements across continents She has made a number of sisal installations in various configurations since 2016 This particular iteration includes a wall of sisal and a series of oval cut outs set against a burnt umber background The cascade of sisal mimics both an abstract painting and accentuates the rough nature of the sisal in a raw state, raising global economic questions around the harvesting of raw materials in one location and their refinement and industrial production in another. In Elliptical Field, and throughout the exhibition, Kiwanga uses patterns and forms that allow for those viewing the artworks to do so in an undefined space of reflection
Courtesy the artist; Galerie Poggi, Paris; Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin; and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and London
Keyhole 2023
Steel structure, plants, water, soil, pea gravel, LED grow lights, air pump
This new work by Kiwanga brings together plants that filter either air, earth or water Each selected plant pulls out toxins and helps to purify the environment it lives in
The shape of the pool is inspired by keyhole gardens, a type of permaculture (a self sustainable ecosystem) planting configuration that is based on a cycle of regeneration. Kiwanga’s main inspiration are the recent keyhole gardens developed in Lesotho In these gardens a path of access to the centre includes a compost area to feed the plants that encircle it
The plant species were selected by Kiwanga and sourced from an Ontario grower They include: Typha latifolia (Broadleaf Cattail), Lobelia cardinalis (Cardinal Flower ‘Queen Victoria’), Iris versicolor (Iris), Saururus cernuus (Lizard’s Tail), Spathiphyllum (peace lily), Veronica beccabunga (European Brooklime), Canna, and Colocasia (Elephant Ear or Taro).
Courtesy the artist; Galerie Poggi, Paris; Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin; and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and London
Residue 2023
Drywall construction, dried banana leaves.
Kiwanga often plays with ideas of absence and presence, and for this new installation she creates a tiled pattern of dried banana leaves that at moments expose aspects of the fixed architectural structure beneath
The choice of banana leaves for this work comes from Kiwanga’s research into chlordecone. This pesticide has been used to treat banana plants to disastrous effect in certain geographies, particularly in the Caribbean In certain places it has completely contaminated the soil, which in turn has afflicted other plant life and caused a range of health issues for the local people This is just one example of the extractive practices of industrial agriculture and for Kiwanga it speaks to how we view our power over the land and natural environment. The references in Residue arc back to Kiwanga’s research into earlier histories of plantation mentality and economy, and a range of applications of toxicity to the land.
Courtesy the artist; Galerie Poggi, Paris; Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin; and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and London
Vivarium: Cytomixis, 2020
Vivarium: Adventitious, 2023
Vivarium: Apomixis, 2023
PVC inflatable, steel structure.
While Kiwanga’s vivariums evoke Wardian cases, which were created to display and protect plant specimens, they are antithetical in design Each of the bulbous forms appears to have grown in symbiosis with a plant in mind, and they are fragile in and of themselves, governed by their own condition of being reliant on the air they contain. Rather than controlling an archived specimen for human consumption, these are forward or future looking projections of what a vivarium may one day become; one where the plant is surrounded by a protective environment that it has the possibility to use as a structure for growth and support, rather than being enclosed, captured and encased
Courtesy the artist and Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin
Glaze
Glaze (green)
Glaze (blue)
Glaze (magenta)
Glaze (orange)
2023
Perspex, coloured transparent vinyl, cut drywall
As with other works on this floor, this site-specific window treatment works as a filter to bathe the gallery space in shades of coloured light. The internally added plexi patterns additionally obscure our view of the cityscape outside, suggesting a containment and form of control of the exhibition space, as if we are captured within a vivarium. The cutout shapes allude to a morphing of the organic and geometric, much like the shapes of the three inflatable vivarium works exhibited throughout the gallery
Scorch 2023
Shou sugi ban flooring.
The new work Scorch is composed of shou sugi ban (焼杉板) floorboards, created by means of a Japanese wood preservation technique Originating in the 18th century, shou sugi ban is a specialized process of charring the surface of the wood with fire to make it waterproof, as well as pest and rot resistant
As we walk across Scorch, we may be aware of a range of evocations. For Kiwanga the work will resonate differently depending on location and time, but two particular references come across powerfully right now: scorched earth policy and wildfires. Scorched earth policy is an intentional military intervention applied during war to cut off all sustenance supplies to an enemy's arable land. Wildfires are being ignited around the world due to the climate crisis caused by human activity Yet, controlled fires and agricultural techniques of fire and fallow, where crops are burnt and the land left to recover, are generative practices As with other works in the exhibition, Kiwanga reveals how intention transforms the outcome of an act from being toxic to remedial or vice versa
Courtesy the artist; Galerie Poggi, Paris; Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin; and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and London. Courtesy the artist; Galerie Poggi, Paris; Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin; and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and London.Steel structure, shade cloth.
Fabricated from industrial metal and an agricultural textile commonly referred to as “shade cloth,” Line mirrors the coloured window cutouts with another reference to the filtering of light Shade cloth is a fabric used to protect crops at varying degrees in commercial farming which, due to foreign investment, now covers swathes of landscape from North America to Africa Its visual effect on the land is striking: a once-natural topography becomes a striped, colour-coded palette Again, Kiwanga’s choice of material is not simply aesthetic, but political. The intent here is to speak to the colonial appropriation of land taken from Indigenous communities, and the manipulation and control of the environment for economic gain.
Courtesy the artist; Galerie Poggi, Paris; Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin; and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and London Vumbi 2012
HD video, sound 31 minutes
In one of Kiwanga’s earliest mediations with plant-life, documented in the video work Vumbi, we see the artist gently cleaning a section of a wall of vegetation, to present a simple but symbolic statement Before Kiwanga begins this process, the leaves are covered in dust, which during the dry season in this particular region of Tanzania lingers over the landscape turning everything a deep rust colour As the artist’s brush slowly reveals the vibrant green of the previously hidden foliage, Kiwanga introduces ideas of empathy and liberty, and yet at the same time she is applying an aesthetic choice. What appears at first to be a loving action can also be read as one of cleansing to reveal the health of the plant, exposing the human desire to intervene and bring order to the natural world.
Courtesy the artist; Galerie Poggi, Paris; Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin; and Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, and London
The Marias 2020
Paper flowers, custom plinths
Kiwanga's interest in the relationship between plants, cleansing and toxicity is intertwined with a related body of research around "plants of revolt," particularly those used as both medicine and poison by subjugated individuals during the colonial era In The Marias, two paper flowers stand in as recreations of the peacock flower plant (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) The paper folding technique is reminiscent of a Victorian hobby for affluent women, yet the flower on show, native to Latin America, was known by the locals for its abortive properties The chemicals within the flower were used by enslaved women to break the reproduction of servitude. In a system where the unborn child was considered the legal property of the master, the refusal of women to give birth meant entering into a biological struggle against this system, by regaining possession of their bodies.
Collection of the Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada Purchased with the support of the Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation, 2021
