Simnikiwe Buhlungu

As an attempt to sample a paused moment, reel-to-reel tape looping conjures a history situated in a completely different yet ubiquitous context, with this work being the cousin of the sonority echoed in Buhlungu’s debut exhibition dissonated underings [hic!], after-happenings and khuayarings (sithi “ahhhh!”) at Kunsthalle Bern (CH), in October 2022.

Departing from historical echoes, the tape loop (Same-ing the same Sames) samples a moment of playing on D.D.T. Jabavu’s Sames piano in his home in Middledrift, South Africa, in October 2021. Jabavu, a South African scholar, writer and educator––amongst other titles–––is a significant generational key here; the tape loop samples the artist playing this piano, upon the encouragement of Makhulu Victoria Jabavu––his last born daughter, now in her eighties, who lives in and minds the historic house, which she also grew up in.

The piano is said to have been bought over by Jabavu from his travels in the UK circa the 1920s -1930s, which is one but many indications to his appreciation and affinity to spiritual and choral music from the 19th and 20th centuries in South Africa––and beyond. The sonority of the piano mechanises the sharing and storing of the movements and everyday mundanities of this family located within a broader socio-historical lineage within the country. A centuries-old chronological echo, Makhulu Victoria’s narrative sharing and invitation to engage with the piano – which itself ‘interluded’ a conversation of considerable personal depth – situates suggestures sonically in this exhibition.