‘Yee Kididi Kiziha’ is a Chasu phrase taken from a Christian Hymanal which is famous to Chachage's grandmother’s household whenever their family gathers. In English, the phrase loosely translates as ‘It is indeed Pleasing’ (to see people/family gather). Family and togetherness are central to this performance which proposes togetherness as a methodology for artistic processes. Throughout the performance the artist will explore knowledges excavated from moments of togetherness, while also exploring the ways in which such knowledges can be explored intergenerationally through collaboration and preserved artistically through one's studio practice.
Rehema Chachage has an expanded practice which extends to her mother and grandmother through process-based research. Together, they create a ‘performative archive’ which untraditionally ‘collects’ and ‘organizes’ stories, practices, rituals and other oral traditions in different media; performance, photography, olfactory, video, essays and text, as well as physical installations. These have often explored the unearthing of history, space, and the body (how the body and the land remember) by using methods that employ storytelling, the matriline, alternative ways of doing and knowing, as well as other methodologies which are both embodied and instinctual. In the past, they have focused on rituals that ‘othered bodies’ have employed as a means of molding, surviving, resisting, and subverting, and how resilience persists through (and despite) a history of dispossession. Their collaborations have been exhibited extensively in Africa, Europe, Asian, and the Americas. Chachage holds a BA in Fine Art (2009) from Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town; and an MA Contemporary Art Theory (2018) from Goldsmiths, University of London. Rehema Chachage is currently in the process of finalizing her PhD in Practice with the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna.
Monday Lectures is a public platform combining invited guest lecturers and professors and researchers of the faculty at KMD. Monday Lectures aim to create a diverse programme of lectures exploring a wide range of disciplines and research topics. Lectures typically take place Mondays 10:00 at the Knut Knaus Auditorium and are free and open to all.
Image by Ibrahim Cissé (2022).