LIBITA SIBUNGU: IN LIVING MEMORY - AT THE EXCHANGE, PENZANCE

04 Oct 2024 — 01 Feb 2025

The Ramp Wall, The Exchange

An exhibition of photographs and notes, presenting research findings that will inform a main gallery exhibition in 2026.

In Living Memory is a six-month research project, emerging from a sister project: Deep Recovery, which was commissioned by Radar, the contemporary art programme of Loughborough University, in association with the British Geological Survey Archives in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, and Kresen Kernow, Redruth, in 2023.

The project brought together four mixed heritage women artists living in Cornwall, to ask the question ‘What is our relationship to granite?’. The group inquiry journeyed through neolithic stone monuments, burial sites, and mines in West Cornwall, connecting slow-forming origin stories from deep ocean magma mineral-rich igneous rock, to personal memories of diasporic journeys, passed down from mothers and grandmothers.

This process of gathering and collecting was documented with sound and notes, and became a performance score and sound work, first presented at Kresen Kernow in autumn 2023. Intended to move through archives, Deep Recovery will be available to experience at The Hypatia Trust, Penzance, in October to coincide with the Ramp Wall presentation.

In Living Memory continues to follow the trail, guided by the stories left by the ancestors. The project brings together the mixed heritage women involved in Deep Recovery and other black women, creating a safe, collaborative, creative space, and a community group for walking, talking, and recording.

In Living Memory, marks the opening up of Sibungu’s ongoing practice. Rather than drawing conclusions, the research sparks a new and enduring body of work rooted in West Cornwall but reaching far beyond.

Further information about Deep Recovery can be found on the Radar website: Radar – Deep Recovery (lboro.ac.uk)

See Read More below for artist’s bio.

Listen to Libita tell us about In Living Memory