Solitude in play series
SOUNDS OF MEMORY
Sounds of Memory which is a part of the project Letters to My childhood. Or could be a manifestation of the same takes on the form of an installation which is set in the form of “Marcue’s Home”. The installation consists of video, sound, sculpture and found objects. A space set as a warm home environment consists of;
Letters To My Childhood, 2017-present
Ink on paper (ruled paper, Kraft paper)
These are the letters, that Immy has written to Marcue (her younger self- a name she was called as a child and one that she still bares when in the presence of close family members). Displayed on a reading desk, the audience is invited to sit and read these letters. The letters take on a very personal and private space but at the same time explore the socio-political and economic environment of the Uganda the artist grew up in and continues to live in. Some of the topics tackled in the letters are daily family encounters, religion, identity; postcolonial effects especially through the education systems and effects of inter city migrations in a country that has over 54 different tribes.
Film on CRT screen TV
22minutes
The process of recollecting memory has been one that allows me to get into that headspace. The portal to that headspace is many times through familiar objects – objects of memory; Banana fibre dolls, plastic dolls, beach balls, charcoal stove, teacups, nursery school drawings, huts and drums. Using stencils of these objects as looking lenses, Marcue’s Photo Album is a fictional representation of what takes place in the mind when blurry images of ones recollections take on a visual form. This in a way talks of the fictions that memory in it self and telling memory can create.
Sounds of Memory, 2018
30minutes
This sound scape consists of nursery rhymes, songs, chants, and folktales in Lugbara, Luganda and English (the 3 languages that I grew up speaking).
Songs like …
Baa baa black sheep
Have you any wool
Yes sir, yes sir, 3bags full
1 for my master, 1 for my dame and
1 for my little boy
Who lives down the lane…feel the air amidst chants on slavery in America. All the songs drift in as memories with the lightness of a play situation but carrying heavy mundane lyrics.
Beethoven’s Fur Elise is a tune that is a reminder of the ice cream man who went around the village with a cooler on his bicycle playing and attracting all the kids to run out and pester mum and aunties for money to enjoy a scoop in the palm, a corn or a cup on a day that mum had a fair amount of money to spare.
A series of photos cover the wall; Marcue’s family wall. Consisting of blurry images as well as moving pictures of situations of play. This continues to describe the space as a home and playground.
Immy Mali 