Quantum Ghost (8), (9), (10)

2019
Sibungu, Libita
Libita Sibungu’s solo and collaborative projects explore the politics of the body and landscape in relation to migration, Blackness and colonialism. Performance, print, text and sound are collaged into what she calls ‘poetic installations’. Her work seeks to unearth lost, buried and hidden testimonies. Her project Quantum Ghost, conceived during the artist's residency at Gasworks, London during the summer of 2018, comprises an immersive sound installation, a series of large-scale photograms and a programme of live performances. Through personal documents and oral histories, she reconstructs the life of her late father, who fought for Namibia’s liberation from Apartheid South Africa as a member of the South West Africa People’s Organisation. In the 1980s, he was exiled to Cornwall, where he studied mining engineering. From mined ores and sedimentary rocks to precious metals and rare earths, the artist examines the raw materials at the core of capitalist extraction, revealing how the echoes of colonialism and diasporic migration reverberate through the deep time of geology and across the ruined landscapes of the Anthropocene. Quantum Ghost (8), (9) and (10), all 2019, portray ghostly images that seem to speak of visions of other worlds. Produced by pressing mined minerals and personal objects directly onto a light-sensitive paper, they are reminiscent of cosmic landscapes and dark matter. Within these, the progressive unfolding of history as perceived from a human perspective is broken into kaleidoscopic visions, which range from the geological timescale of mineralisation to the lightspeed of the Internet. Quantum Ghost was commissioned and produced by Gasworks, London through the Freelands Gasworks Partnership. Supported by Freelands Foundation and Arts Council England.
  • Artwork Details: 180 x 123cm 180 x 123cm
  • Edition:
  • Material description: Dibond mounted photogram
  • Credit line: © the artist. Installation view (detail) at Spike Island, Bristol. Image courtesy of the artist. Photo: Max McClure
  • Theme:
  • Medium: Photograph
  • Accession number: ACC5/2020

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