IN CLAYMAN’S TERMS – A CONCRETE LOOK AT RELIGOUS CULTS

A simple contraption used to lure and trap birds during a hunt served as the source of inspiration for a WSU lecturer’s winning piece during a prestigious national sculpting competition held in Johanesburg recently.

For sculptor Sonwabiso Ngcai, walking away with top honours at this year’s edition of the much sought after PPC Imaginarium sculpting competition held in April represents the biggest accolade he’s ever netted in his career.

“When they were about to announce the winner, I had my phone in my hand ready to take a video of the winner. When I was announced as the overall winner my body froze and I went absolutely numb. I just couldn’t believe it! Even now it hasn’t yet sunk in,” said Ngcai.

Delving deep into the depths of his fondest memories of his boyhood in the rural area of Ngqeleni outside Mthatha, Ngcai, in an effort to come up with a concept, struck conceptual gold as an epiphany suddenly hit him one afternoon.

An avid bird hunter during his boyhood days, Ngcai would use a plethora of ways and means to capture his prey.

“One of the most effective hunting methods was the use of Isigu – a mechanism consists of a downward-facing bowl, with one side held open by an upright stick that has a string tied to it, with a few pieces of grain scattered underneath the bowl. Lured by the promise of food, a bird enters the area – the string is tugged, and the bird is captured,” he says.

The concept of Isigu would serve as an apt analogy for Ngcai’s mounted artistic display, which seeks to portray the entrapment of people in South Africa by religious cults. This contentious issue is what is at the heart of his mesmerizing sculpture.

Much of the contraption remains the same in the piece – the bowl, stick and string remain intact. However, a slight alteration sees the bird seed being replaced with a bible which is meant to lure the many desperate souls yearning for greener pastures into the trap.

“In this piece, the use of this simple but effective hunting tool is an analogy for the entrapment of people by religious cults. In South Africa, recent exploitation has included feeding vulnerable congregants snakes and grass, making them drink petrol, sexual abuse, bullying and victimisation – all in the name of faith,” says Ngcai.

He says the choice of the medium be used smacks of serendipity, as the concrete refers to the perceived power of faith and how congregants find strength in the bible. The trap alludes to temporary church pop-up structures such as tents or rented buildings that appear in strategic places.

Ngcai says no medium of expression can be absolved from the prevailing issues that confront contemporary society.

“My work exists and talks to the objective realities that we as people are facing today. Artists also have a duty to educate, enthral, mystify, but most importantly, create awareness through artistic expression,” he says.

This year proved second-time lucky for Ngcai, who in 2017 played bridesmaid after being runner-up to overall winner Mziwoxolo Makalima, another prodigious WSU talent that continues to produce an exquisite body of work.

Emweka, as Ngcai’s 2017 work was titled, explored a particular aspect in the life of twins.

“Within the context of the Xhosa cultural and traditional belief systems, where twins have to observe a specific ritual in which they have to throw silver coins into the sea to appease their ancestors before they can bath or swim. The concrete made coins speak to the heated calls for decolonization in South Africa, people have been stating that we should rid ourselves of Eurocentric or Colonial value systems,” he says.

In Emweka, he posits that the Xhosa requirement for twins to throw money into the sea could be read as an active participation to decolonization, where one of the most colonial valuables is rendered useless and is thrown back to where white people came from (the sea).

By: Thando Cezula