Otobong Nkanga
©Courtesy of the Artist
Nkanga designed the tapestries for M HKA's ‘Puntzaal’; they were produced in the TextielMuseum’s (Tilburg Textile Museum) TextielLab.
In the tapestry The Weight of Scars (2015) ten spaces have been left for images. In her photography, Nkanga goes searches the boundary between the truth that is contained in a photo and the amount of information and truth that is not visible. Everything that preceded the taking of the picture or happens after that moment can't be contained in a static image, so a picture can be a piece of evidence, but it doesn't necessarily show the truth.
Apart from that, Nkanga wants to capture the world around her through photography, not to create a static image, but precisely to show the changes. Photography provides evidence of human interference.
At the age of seven, Nkanga lost her father and at the age of seventeen, her mother. Moreover, in 1977 she lost any tangible proof of her early years due to a house fire. Only two photographs could be saved, one of Nkanga with her brother and sister, another, a wedding picture of her parents. This made it impossible for Nkanga to ask certain questions about her origin and history. The urge to study everything to the bone and to gather as much information as possible, may be linked to these events.
