Expressions: Charity Vilakazi’s work, such as ‘Isisho II, Ibomvu ‘
A popular traditional folktale many from KwaZulu-Natal might have heard during childhood is the story of Manzandaba or “she who brings stories to humanity”. She is the leading figure in a story that offers the genesis of storytelling during the pre-civilisation era or the “time when the First Man and the First Woman walked upon the earth”.
One version says Manzandaba, her woodcarver husband Zenzele and their many children lived an idyllic life in a village near the ocean.
When they weren’t hunting, weaving baskets, working the land, tanning leather or cleaning their homestead, they would play and bask in the sun near the sea and marvel at the scenery with all its creatures.
However, their time in the evenings would be consumed by darkness and idleness, resulting in the children demanding stories from their mother. With assurance from Zenzele that he would take care of their children, and after asking her community for advice, Manzandaba boldly ventures out of the village and makes many unsuccessful attempts to find stories.
Eventually, she follows a turtle who leads her into the depths of the sea where the Spirit People reside.
Manzandaba gives them a woodcarving by Zenzele in exchange for a large, beautiful shell that tells tales when held close to the ear. Upon her return, she is met by her family and the entire village, eager to hear the stories Manzandaba has brought them. Sitting around a fire with her people and the shell held close to her ear, she begins, “Kwesuka sukela …”
This story, and variations of it, is not just an explanation of the source of all stories in the folktales of Zulu tradition. It’s also the story that birthed the visual storytelling of 31-year-old Durban-born Nokukhanya Charity Vilakazi, a multimedia artist and visual orator whose work has featured on (in)sight, an all-women exhibition held by the Through the Lens Collective and Joburg Fringe; the Pretoria Art Museum and 2022’s Turbine Art Fair in Johannesburg.
She has been selected as a Design Indaba Emerging Creative (2022) and a Sasol New Signatures finalist (2021). She recently showed her work Butha Umhlambi Wakho Kukhona Isikhala Emakhazeni Othingo (gather your flock, there is space in the sanctuary of the rainbow) at Joburg’s Kalashnikovv Gallery and is gearing up for a solo exhibition at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair.
“My work really is based on the question of, “Where do stories come from?” says Vilakazi, who is not unlike the Mazandaba figure. Guided by a strong community of matriarchs, ancestral and living, who narrated a variety of stories to her and her siblings as children, Vilakazi’s desire for stories has resulted in artworks that explore and celebrate the power of women, African heritage, traditions and beauty.
“Growing up, I had the privilege of being surrounded by grandmothers who believed in enforcing values of radical equality between girls and boys. Their stories would always have a female protagonist and were passed down by word of mouth and entertained us,” Vilakazi says, alluding to stories such as Mazandaba’s.
‘Isisho I, Ibomvu
Through the lens of a matriarchal gaze, Vilakazi’s works defy masculine values, which reify hierarchy and the dichotomy between men and women, and instead choose to focus on “woman-identified experiences” in African cultures and traditions. Within this space, viewers are able to tune into the narratives of women’s camaraderie, bonding and the symbiosis emerging from this coalescence that often goes unrecorded within the stronghold of patriarchy.
We see this in the painting, Kancane Kancane Siba Munye (little by little, we become one), created with ubomvu (red clay) and other media on Fabriano paper.
In this piece, a group of women seems inextricably entangled. Some hold onto their conical Zulu traditional hairstyles, as if they are holding on to the cultural practices that partially define them. Embedded as they are on land depicted with speckles of green, they are represented as people belonging to the realm of the earth where nature (with its wilderness) and culture (ruled by human organisation) preside.
In contrast, the woman suspended in midair, with a spotted snake twirled around her, seems to be cast into a supernatural realm, with the snake representing a connection to divinity as it often does among different ethnic groups in Africa.
Portrayed side by side, the diviner and the group of women come to symbolise the fabric of many African traditional societies, particularly Zulu. Women, who are more commonly given the role of diviners or sangomas, act as the spiritual healers of their communities or as those individuals who are granted the power to act as arbiters and mediators between nature and culture.
Through her powers, the woman diviner is able to decipher and interpret the untamable, wild properties of nature and apply them in her community as a remedy for physical and mental ailments. The women in the image express joy, shock, fear or awe but are still intertwined and united in their project for potential healing.
In documenting significant aspects of religion and spirituality, Vilakazi tends to rely on childlike illustrations using primary colours or bright, vivid hues. She uses a minimalistic aesthetic when depicting the human form, with an emphasis on facial expressions, Zulu traditional hairstyles and face paint or makeup.
These illustrations, with their uncomplicated and cheerful appeal, are Vilakazi’s way of expressing her childlike awe of her own Zulu heritage and a way of tapping into her juvenile spirit.
“I’m still a child,” she says, laughing. “When I add the element of the ancestors, with the ancestors being part of the matriarchal gaze, in their eyes I’m still a child and I’m still learning. This is my way of learning how to connect with my people as a child.
“I also think, as adults, we tend to overthink and that can be a bit heavy. In that sense, sometimes it’s best to adopt a childlike mindset.”
Vilakazi could be illustrating the importance of this childlike mindset in the paintings of the Isisho (meaning “expression” or “saying”) series with its striking portraits and close-ups of two female figures. The expression of the figure in Isisho I can be interpreted as rapture or sudden delight, while Isisho II seems to portray shock or even wonder.
‘Kancane Kancane Siba Munye’, is inspired the matriarchs who told her stories as a child
These expressions are redolent of those thrilling, and almost jarring, moments that occur in childhood when we’re first presented with aphorisms and proverbs. They seem to express those moments that make the hairs on your arms stand up as you transition from a state of naivety and innocence to being able to intellectually grasp a phrase that feels new and yet extremely familiar.
“A person is only a person because of other people” and “the way forward is to ask those who have been before” are commonplace South African sayings that still carry the profundity they had when we first learned of them.
In a sense, even our present emotional responses to them, perhaps of awe or reverence, are a reminder of the childlike sensibilities we may carry into adulthood. In addition, the facial expressions of Isisho, with their simplicity and clarity, seem to mimic the concise, self-contained, yet veracious, qualities of aphorisms.
Through Vilakazi’s work, where matriarchal moral values are centred on a will to offer spiritual enrichment, healing, regeneration and nurturing, the viewer is never too far from the feeling of rapture.
In the same way Mazandaba’s children and community members may have been delighted when hearing the world’s first stories, the wanting eye desires the unearthing of more narratives centred on women, African knowledge and traditional stories when viewing Vilakazi’s works.
“When people view my art, I hope they can see themselves in it and be proud of their African heritage. I want Africans to keep pushing the narrative that ‘just because history is not written down, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist’ because if it doesn’t exist, we risk wiping out who we were and even who we are.
“Through my work, I’m celebrating the way our people used to tell stories and continuing the tradition of storytelling by passing down knowledge in the same way that the great matriarchs in my life did.”
Vilakazi will showcase unseen work with Kalashnikovv as part of a solo exhibition at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair from 17 to 19 February.