JAN HOET / ANN DEMEESTER
Beyond Wounds and Scars. The multiple worlds of Ingrid Mwangi [excerpt]
The savage. The Negro. The primitive. Those are taboo-words, which we dare not use, being inhibited by our political correctness, our fear to damage, insult and hurt. Mwangi uses them, literally or metaphorically. She speaks, sings, shouts and shows them - without shame or restraint. A back, marked by the relatively fresh imprints of a whip, is called to mind. Not yet healed into scars, no longer bloody. In-between wounds. Even those who only have a fragmented historical knowledge or very little political awareness, are immediately reminded of issues such as slavery and colonialism. It is an image with a scandalous directness, which nevertheless functions as a metaphor. As a European born in a country which overturned and abused the population of an African country over a period of more than fifty years, these images are unwanted. They remind you of facts and figures, which you would like to forget, be unaware of and delete. Mwangi does not allow you to do so. It makes you wonder how a viewer less burdened by a bloody colonial tradition would see and interpret them. Mwangi occupies both sides. She has Afro-European roots, lives in front and behind the divide. From her father´s side she belongs to the "Wretched of the Earth", and from her mother´s side she belongs to the "Camp of the Conquerors". Taking this hybridity into account, it cannot be denied that Mwangi´s work is determined by the discourse of gender and race.
This brings us back to a much more difficult - possibly a rhetorical question. Is Ingrid Mwangi a Kenyan artist, a Kenyan-German artist, a German artist from Kenyan decent or a European artist from African decent with the German nationality? Is she African, European or Afro-European? Artists living in between culture have become fashionable. Their so-called split identity is no longer a marginal thing, it has become a selling point. These alleged Diaspora-artists are generally considered to be both exotic and familiar. As more and more critics and curators get interested in the traditional and cross-cultural theme, their work is openly welcomed in their new Western homeland - even if this means that they have to tolerate leftist-paternalist encouragements. Their work is not solely considered to be art, it is also seen as a social statement. This implies that these artists are burdened with expectations. They should remain as authentic as possible, should not allow themselves to become too westernized, and their works should include references to themes such as cultural transplantation and migration.
The Dutch writer Hafid Bouazza - from Moroccan decent - claims that the hybrid author has no more social obligations than the so-called "pure" one.1 His "multiple" identity should not force him or her into the role of multicultural mouthpiece. Bouazza states that the only homeland of the writer is his language, his only passport is his style. Out of all the elements of the cultures into which he has lived, he produces his own culture with the imagination as his sole instrument.
This sounds like a warning and maybe it is one. Don´t try to pin down the capricious butterfly of the imagination. Do not allow that the work of artists of so-called mixed decent such as Mwangi becomes just that - an interesting perspective into the mind and world of an immigrant. It is much more than that. It is a world in itself.
1)Hafid Bouazza, Beer in bontjas, Boekenweekessay 2001, published by CPNB, Amsterdam, p. 12.
© Jan Hoet and Ann Demeester. 2003
Written for Your Own Soul. Ingrid Mwangi, Kehrer Heidelberg/ Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003 on pages 42- 49.
