In this solo exhibition, Libita Sibungu works with early photographic techniques alongside drawing and sound to uncover the hidden layers, energies, and histories that connect people to place. Fragments of real and imagined archives are woven together through voice and movement, forming shifting, living systems that refuse colonial classification.
From this space of thought, the gallery becomes host to a shapeshifting body of work imbued with afro-futurism, rock cycles, Cornish folklore, and West and Southern African mythologies.
Central to the exhibition are a pair of floor to ceiling cyanotype banners, which act like a veil between worlds of strata, exposed with sunlight in Windhoek, Namibia, and Cornwall, UK. The work borrows its title from Octavia E. Butler’s speculative fiction novel, Wild Seed, (1980).
A series of drawings punctuate the gallery walls like portals, intimately sharing experiences of Black and Brown identifying-women in the Cornish West Penwith landscape. Libita has worked with these women, who are also artists, through walking workshops since 2023. Their voices echo throughout the gallery in a multi-channel sound work composed of vocal (dis)harmonies layered with field recordings and low frequencies.
The sound installation culminates in a circular resonating seat, inviting listeners to rest, and feel what they are hearing and seeing. This process of listening is reflected in the large-scale photograms which surround the seat. Made with an experimental analogue technique of exposing light photosensitive paper with sound and light simultaneously. The title of each photogram refers to the process used in this series to sonify matter, such as sand, crystals, hair and thorns, as a way to speak to and with gaps in history.
ZED LOVE is rooted in research to better understand African diasporic, working class, mixed and multi-racial experiences in rural Britain. Libita draws on her own British-Namibian-Cornish heritage to open up complex dialogues of thought about racialised identities.
A public programme of events, both in the gallery and offsite, will accompany the exhibition. This will include performance, an artist talk, and workshops.
Source: Newlyn Art Gallery
