Residency
Christian Nyampeta‘s work develops an artistic and philosophical enquiry into the nuances and intersections of communalities and commonalities in ascetic practices during the late antiquities and in contemporary African/a philosophy.
Taking as an example the Kinyarwanda word for generosity – ubuntu – which also means existing and being human, Nyampeta considers what it means to be human and the subtleties that lie within the multiplicity of meanings within words, their origins and the space of contemplation and discussion that can occur with the removal of a fixed state. For his residency, he gathered a working group to translate excerpts of untranslated Francophone texts from African philosophers and writers, examining the complexities of translations and the shared space and community of practice that can be built amongst those with differing social and political groupings.
Nyampeta spent the residency period unpicking and digesting recent conversations with philosophers, writers, theorists, artists and researchers that he had been working with over the past few months. Building on these dialogues, he produced a series of online audio transmissions which were made available to the public as he worked towards his exhibition at Camden Art Centre in September.
