We are an artist duo, ivukuvuku and Philiswa Lila, who live and work in South Africa. Our work engages a research-based practice that involves visual arts performance, installation art, painting, writing, photography and film. We work with themes of gender, violence, love, pain, healing and resilience. Materiality plays a vital role in our process because it extends beyond the simple fact of physical matter to broadly encompass all relevant information related to physical existence in everyday life: touch, smell, hearing, emotions, thinking, movement, to mention a few. We also explore the active processes of reconnecting and recreating relationships within the sacred space where the presence of nature and ancestors reside. Thus, water, fire, sun and wind are used in our art-making process as we engage an emotive experience laced with an outpouring of mind, body and spirit escapes from everyday life. 

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Our use of creative reflection, process and research weighs heavily on memory, as we draw from personal and collective experiences in producing work that channels feelings and emotions based on past pain but reoccurs in the present as interpretations of seeking healing, working towards healing, and continuously healing. We treat both past and present as realities that put form to memories, as we navigate what it means to remember and re-member violent encounters of generational traumas, those that are physical, emotional and spiritual. We explore two ideas: Firstly, pouring healing manifests itself as pouring out the acts of violence, suffering, pain, and wounded childhood memories; and secondly, pouring healing is an openness to receiving healing offered, while the process also implies emptying intense emotions and feelings from our selves. 

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Read more about VukuvukuPhila! our collaboration story here