Drawing from her training in anthropology, Kapwani Kiwanga’s research-based work in film, sculpture, performance, and installation signals anti-colonial struggle and attention to systems of power through a combination of conceptual and architectural strategies. In Kiwanga’s recent site-specific installation Plot (2020), three largescale, semitransparent paintings on fabric were hung throughout the Munich Haus der Kunst’s central hall, evoking colours found in the neighbouring Englischer Garten. The curtains also functioned as containers for hybrid metal sculptures, inflatable volumes, and living plants. Referencing 19th-century glass containers used to import foreign plants to Europe, the sculptures point to architecture and nature’s manipulation throughout history to serve human desires. Other works, like Dune (2021), incorporate organic ingredients of human exploitation: specifically, sand used for fracking – the extraction of oil and gas – in southern Texas. Terrarium, a new installation for The Milk of Dreams, fuses the concerns of these past projects. In it, Kiwanga creates an environment with a desert sunset palette, comprising large semitransparent paintings and a series of glass sculptures containing sand. Kiwanga imagines sand as a political material: a harmful product of the oil industry and a reminder of an increasingly arid planet.
Madeline Weisburg
