INTRODUCTION
How are we looking at our pasts to better understand our present moment to influence our futures? In a not-so-abstract way, we see our heritage as a key to unlocking a more informed future. This way, we activate our heritage as a pathway to new perspectives of self and form vital solutions to unlearning false narratives of who we are.
By tapping into our heritage, we are collectively offering ourselves an opportunity to redirect our gaze to look within and build new pools of knowledge curated by us through us.
This knowledge bears witness to stories that came before and continues to live through us. In this present intersection of mixed realities, We Are Still Here reflects on what it means to be custodians of heritage. What kind of world emerges when people tap into a new era of creation outside of “validated systems?”
We Are Still Here provides cues and tools for self-excavation already embedded within different communities across the globe – Tools that turn us into anthropological archeologists who need not go far to excavate the value stored within. It’s an acknowledgment that our bodies of knowledge serve as sites of memory that hold heritage.
By tapping into our heritage, we are collectively offering ourselves an opportunity to redirect our gaze to look within and build new pools of knowledge curated by us through us.
This knowledge bears witness to stories that came before and continues to live through us. In this present intersection of mixed realities, We Are Still Here reflects on what it means to be custodians of heritage. What kind of world emerges when people tap into a new era of creation outside of “validated systems?”
We Are Still Here provides cues and tools for self-excavation already embedded within different communities across the globe – Tools that turn us into anthropological archeologists who need not go far to excavate the value stored within. It’s an acknowledgment that our bodies of knowledge serve as sites of memory that hold heritage.
™MO LAUDI
Mo Laudi (Ntshepe Tsekere Bopape) is a multi-disciplinary artist, composer, DJ, Stellenbosch University research fellow, the first South African Black curator to curate a group exhibition in Paris. He is inspired by African knowledge systems, post-apartheid transnationalism, international and underground subcultures.
His boundary-blurring investigations find expression through experiments with sound material and sonic landscapes, painting, collage, sculpture, installations, video and performance as socio-political critiques of society. He is known for his Globalisto philosophy and his key contributions to Afro-Electronic music. His process delves into archives and seeks to evoke healing, the notion of rest, communal connection deep listening, care and repair.
His exhibition history includes Centre Pompidou in Paris (2019) with the sound work Motho ke motho ka batho (A Tribute to Ernest Mancoba). This has since been shown with his Rest Paintings series althe Dakar Biennale last year and at Shimmer in Rotterdam (2023). His curatorial projects include Globalisto. A Philosophy in Flux at the Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Etienne (2022) and one in development at the Musée d'ethnographie de Genève, Geneva, in collaboration with Madeleine Leclair (2025).
His boundary-blurring investigations find expression through experiments with sound material and sonic landscapes, painting, collage, sculpture, installations, video and performance as socio-political critiques of society. He is known for his Globalisto philosophy and his key contributions to Afro-Electronic music. His process delves into archives and seeks to evoke healing, the notion of rest, communal connection deep listening, care and repair.
His exhibition history includes Centre Pompidou in Paris (2019) with the sound work Motho ke motho ka batho (A Tribute to Ernest Mancoba). This has since been shown with his Rest Paintings series althe Dakar Biennale last year and at Shimmer in Rotterdam (2023). His curatorial projects include Globalisto. A Philosophy in Flux at the Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Etienne (2022) and one in development at the Musée d'ethnographie de Genève, Geneva, in collaboration with Madeleine Leclair (2025).