SEKAI MACHACHE
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Sekai Machache (she/her) is a Zimbabwean-Scottish visual artist and curator based in Glasgow. Her work is a deep interrogation of the notion of self, in which photography plays a crucial role in supporting an exploration of the historical and cultural imaginary. Aspects of her photographic practice are formulated through digital studio based compositions utilising body paint and muted lighting to create images that appear to emerge from darkness.
In recent works she expands to incorporate other media and approaches that evoke that which is invisible and undocumented. She is interested in the relationship between spirituality, dreaming and the role of the artist in disseminating symbolic imagery to provide a space for healing against contexts of colonialism and loss.
In recent years Sekai has developed bodies of work that she calls ‘Immersive Projects’ which includes The Divine Sky. The Divine Sky, utilises allegory and performance to tell a complicated history through poesis, immersive storytelling, and photography. This work denotes a process of inscribing and re-inscribing thought through automatic drawing with ink on paper, indigo parchment on fabric, performance to camera, layering and overlaying.
Sekai’s short film, Profound Divine Sky, was shot at Forsinard at the Flow Country in the Scottish Highlands, and will form the central focus of our discussion. Through movement, and to the accompaniment of four spoken poems, Sekai explores the ways in which Black bodies exist in rural landscapes. Sekai has written the following about the making of this exquisite film:
‘The image of the sky reflected in the peat bogs caught me as a beautiful image and became crucial to this project that encompasses many themes… Scottish landscape, African metaphysics and cosmology, ritual practice, Celtic song, ritual performance, Gaidhlig language, and Black Scottish Identity. I moved from confined studio/domestic spaces, continually drawing for the earlier pieces of The Divine Sky project, to finally getting the opportunity to travel North and the space suddenly stretching for miles and miles of gorgeous Scottish landscape, peatlands, sphagnum moss, and water. I perform in this place, tracing the language of water, my movements careful yet fluid.’
In her talk, Sekai also speaks about the role of different forms of energy, and how they influence our experience of ourselves - including our mental and physical states - as well as our relationship with our surroundings. The question of the ethics of energy is brought up in the context of meditation and healing practices, as well as African metaphysics and folklore, and how they relate to the Scottish landscape. Moreover, she touches on redefining human-nature relationships to move beyond exploitative dynamics and focus on giving back, rather than utilising natural resources by executing gestures of healing and blessing as part of her performance in the Flow Country.
Sekai is the recipient of the 2020 RSA Morton Award and is an artist in residence with the Talbot Rice Residency Programme 2021-2023.
WATCH THE FULL RECORDING OF SEKAI’S TALK BELOW
THE PROFOUND DIVINE SKY FILM SCREENING
In March 2023, Looking North hosted a screening of Sekai’s Profound Divine Sky at the Byre Theatre in St. Andrews. Read more about the event by clicking the button below.
