The uncomfortable, constant, and necessary work of decolonization

Imagine sitting down for a cup of tea with an artist, while she unravels her life’s stories and discusses reshaping our understanding of history, through a rich blend of artistic expressions. This is the captivating experience that "Things I Found Nelle Viscere" by Camilla Pontiggia has offered to us last June, at the Museum of Geography in Padua, followed by a discussion with the audience, moderated by Prof. Mariasole Pepa, from University of Padua. The exhibition weaved together stories and visceral feelings experienced in the immigration between two continents, Africa and Europe, delving into deep places of memory and lived experiences. The title hints at Camilla's belief that embracing the visceral and uncomfortable sensations that the exhibition provokes can be a powerful decolonial and political act.

The artist is a white woman who emigrated as a child to South Africa, where she grew up without ever losing her connection with Valsabbia, the mountain valley near Brescia, in northern Italy, where her family comes from. By reflecting on the history of these two countries to which she belongs, Camilla wanted to highlight the heavy colonial and imperial legacies still present in both Italy and South Africa.

It is no coincidence that the first thing that catches the eye approaching the exhibition is a textile reproduction of the first modern atlas from 1570, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, or Theatre of the World, by the Flemish geographer Abraham Ortelius. The artist’s decision to create this map was influenced by the scholarly work of Walter Mignolo, who considers this particular map an important symbol of how Renaissance Europe redefined itself in relation to the rest of the world, and slowly ushered in the colonial epistemology that is still present today. Through a variety of art forms and performances – knitting, video, sound, painting, food, sewing, and personal objects like photo frames – Camilla shares her stories, inviting the audience to sit with her nelle viscere – inside the ‘bowels of being’ – and critically reflect on the ongoing impacts of colonialism, whilst sharing beloved family recipes and meals that shaped her as a person and artist, Besides reflecting on the complex consequences of colonialism, she also highlights the beauty of blending cultural traditions. She stresses the similarities and differences between South Africa and Italy, reflecting on the experience of living between these two worlds and the sense of belonging that can resonate with anyone who has lived far from home or carried multiple cultural identities.

We went to her performance, and the following day she shared with TOLD a bit more about her journey as an artist engaged in the uncomfortable, constant, and necessary work of decolonization.

“Things I Found nelle vicere” - Padova, 7th June 2024. Photos: Ana Gabriela da Cruz Fontoura and Luiza Valentim Munhoz.

How do you think that decoloniality is being discussed in the field of the arts?

I can only speak from my experience as a South African since it’s within that context that I have observed how artists and creative spaces have been engaging with decolonial ideas. These concepts have been present in South Africa for a long time. Maybe they didn't always have the specific name "decolonial”, but practices that aligned with decolonial thinking existed during and before Apartheid, with influential figures like Steve Biko, an iconic anti-Apartheid activist, advocating for the decolonization of the mind, like many others have done across Africa and Latin America.

I recently returned to do postgraduate studies at the same University I graduated from in 2010, and it is a very different university that I returned to, in a very exciting way. I returned two years ago to the Art Department, and they are working to be interdisciplinary, bringing together theatre students, music students, art students, cultural policy development students, history of art students, all in one building. The curriculum has really shifted in terms of being more sensitive towards theories of decoloniality and black feminist practices, which has been amazing because we didn't get a lot of that in my undergraduate years.

The concept of decoloniality and the field of decolonial studies are influencing various areas of knowledge, within Academia and beyond. So, how do you personally engage with these ideas in your studies, but also in other areas of your life. How do you practice these principles outside of an academic setting?

Within art spaces, I've observed and participated in many discussions and practices where artists and students grapple with decolonial theories. I reflected on this yesterday [during the exhibition], on how these ideas manifest in our actual work, and what it means to really engage with them. The challenge is integrating decolonial thinking into art, which is also a commercial thing, that has a particular type of economy- and capitalist economic value functions in opposition to a decolonial way of thinking. In trying to move towards a decolonial aesthesis as an artist, I find it raises existential questions: is art even something that should be for sale? It can be overwhelming, because when you start making art you do it with a desire to make money from your work. However, there is always a sensation that creating art from a deep, authentic place doesn't always align with making a sellable product. This tension is something many artists, including myself, navigate as we think through how decoloniality meets the financial realities of a capitalist economy.

What I have seen happening in Johannesburg is a move towards less formal, self-initiated exhibitions. These are more like workshops where artists occupy galleries and display works in progress. A great example of this was Occupy The Gallery by South African artists Mary Sibande and Lawrence Lemaoana. At their opening, none of the work was up yet; people came and engaged with artists as they were putting things up, as they were making curatorial decisions through an entire month, and you had to keep returning to see how the show grew and developed. It was a great shift towards showing the process of things, as opposed to just showcasing the completion, which for me speaks back to an aesthesis of valuing everyday practices.

The artist working with the space of the Museum of Geography of the University of Padua during the performance.

In terms of daily life, embracing decolonial practices alongside black feminist practices has been very important for me. The starting point that initiated all the work that I have done, is thinking about who I am and what kind of person I want to be in this world. I think the conscientization I had is that I am a white person, in a world that privileges white people. And asking myself the question, what is my role to play in this work of decolonization? Because I think decolonizing your work involves recognising and aligning with the idea that it's the people who have been oppressed, who should lead, as they have the best understanding of what change is needed. I guess what I’m trying to say is what thinkers like Frantz Fanon and Paulo Freire have already said, that the revolution is in the hands of the “contadini”, of the oppressed. Steve Biko also talked about it. White activists can sometimes cause more harm than good if they take over and try to lead how resistance should look. In Apartheid, there were a lot of conversations about this.

I don’t have a final answer about what my role is but what I do know is that I am showing up to understand, and I have found the work of decolonial thinkers and black feminist scholars to be my greatest teachers in this regard. I don't want to blindly repeat moves that have happened in the past, that we can try to learn from, not just perpetuate.

On a daily level, I focus on trying to be very intentional about very small acts of resistance, such as embracing the fact that I am a very slow person by nature. I think slow, I do slow, I feel slow. Being slow by nature has felt very contrary to the system of capitalist productivity that dominates the two countries I have lived in. I have never fitted particularly well within a framework of fast labour and high turnover, and I've really had to work on learning differently that there is nothing inherently wrong with being slow, and that there are different ways of being in the world, and of doing.

And then the other thing I wanted to say is that I have been part of many friendship groups where we intentionally have created weekly or monthly meetings to talk about stuff that we were experiencing or processing. Many of us came from Christian church backgrounds and we were really all struggling with our beliefs. We still felt a deep connection to the spiritual and to God, but we were really struggling with patriarchal ways of thinking in our churches and with dismissive attitudes towards systemic injustices around race. These meetings provided a space to feel seen and heard. And we spent about two years together journeying, and it was difficult and uncomfortable, but we kept returning. And I think that's a great example of something that is slow, that takes time, but that becomes an act of defiance and resistance. You know, people think “what's the point of having a dialogue? Nothing changes!” but, well, it is the accumulation of dialogues! And for me this slow, intentional work is a lifelong commitment to pivoting towards a decolonial and feminist way of being every day, and it doesn't magically happen. It happens by daily shifting.

You mentioned your experience in South Africa, so I was wondering about the differences you noticed when you first exhibited in Johannesburg compared to now, here in Italy. How did the audiences' acceptance and reactions vary between the two locations? Also, I enjoyed how here in Padua you challenged the idea of a very fixed and rigid space. How did the space in Johannesburg compare, and what were your feelings performing there versus here?

The spaces were quite different. In Johannesburg, I exhibited in a project space dedicated to students. It was a modern-looking, white gallery space, very different to exhibiting in a museum. And the Museum of Geography in Padua is very old and has a lot of history. The museum space has a lot of beautiful architectural details, the rooms could be exhibited just as they are. There are also a lot of historical things in there that actually you can’t move, or you can't hammer into the wall, so you have to work with what is there. So, just from a practical perspective, here I had to really think about how do I work within the limitations of what I am allowed and not allowed to do. I mentioned to Giovanni Donadelli, the curator of the Museum of Geography of University of Padua, that sometimes when that sort of thing happens, you can either panic and say nothing is going to work, it is not how I did it before, or you can choose to surrender to the process and say I am not going to work against this. I am going to work with it and see how I can make it work for me. And I think that attitude is very helpful. I have had to learn that; I wasn't always like this. I would often fight things, and sometimes I still do.

As for the audiences, I was very surprised by how receptive people were in both South Africa and Italy. I mean, obviously, if someone hated the performance, they probably wouldn’t come up to me and say so. But instead, there were a lot of people who came up to me, both in Johannesburg and here in Padua, to say that they loved and were moved by the exhibition. I was also surprised by the fact that, I know my story and I live with my story, but you don't realise maybe how vulnerable it actually is when strangers are listening to it. I think people were quite touched by the vulnerability of it, and I really didn't expect that in Johannesburg, where the audience was much more multicultural. And you know, some of what I am talking about can be uncomfortable, or repetitive for people, particularly for people of colour, who have lived with these issues all their lives.

They could be like “I know the stuff, why are you telling me this? This hurts me because I don't want to have to sit here and feel triggered, when I've spent my entire life knowing this pain” and I would completely understand that reaction. In that sense, I do worry and wonder whether my work might not always be useful or appropriate for these audiences. But then, what has been interesting is that I have had reactions from a multicultural audience where they communicated how they felt touched by the human to human connection and vulnerability of the work.

I feel wary of saying this, because I mean, colour is a construct, but it’s effects are very real, so I am very wary to say it transcended race, because that can be such a whitewashing thing - but still I think there was something about human to human connection that happened and I was quite moved by that. There were a few South African girls who came up to me who shared how they felt very moved by the space and atmosphere that I had created in which they were willing to sit and listen, even to stuff that maybe wasn't always that comfortable. You don't want to romanticise this stuff, especially as a white person it’s very easy to fall into this. But I think there is something to be said about creating moments where there's a depth, and a presence, and a holding of a space that becomes a moment of soulful exchange from one human being to another.

Bringing this work to Italy, I was very scared about coming into what I assumed would be a predominantly white audience, and potentially a level of resistance. I mean, I think art needs to do that, but obviously it is scary, I was mentally preparing myself for more pushback. And instead, once again, I was very surprised to find an incredibly receptive audience, regardless of whether they were academics, friends or family. It seemed that something was able to reach everyone, according to the level they were able to absorb it. And so even there the audience was very moved and it was surprising for me. I can't give you information yet about the next place where I'm doing this show, a much smaller community in the mountainous area where my family is from. I am doing the exhibition as part of a month of awareness around the status of refugees and asylum seekers, so I am assuming people who will choose to come are probably still more receptive to these concepts. But my understanding of countryside areas in Italy is that there is less willingness to hear about these topics, and so I don't know what will happen there.

I hope it works out, as my original intention for my performances, and the creative gatherings of Far Filò that accompany the exhibition, was to invite people into my exhibition space to engage with this body of work, which can sometimes bring discomfort, but can also raise interesting questions and dialogue. These gatherings of Far Filò are another act of decolonial aesthesis, of valuing everyday aesthetic practices within a contemporary art environment. In moments like Far Filò the purpose is about being together, knitting, sharing tea and coffee, asking questions or simply talking about life.