Art and Culture by Francis Chanthunya
Culture: a set of values and beliefs shared by a group of people; a way of life shaped by geography, historical circumstance and contemporary technology. As such, when people migrate, and as times change, culture begins to mutate. New ideas are adopted and adapted, different peoples’ societies begin to integrate and — as Africa’s unique history with slavery and colonialism demonstrates — some concepts and ideas are lost to oppression. This begs the question: what aspects of culture deserve to be preserved for the benefit of future generations?
There are many layers to this phenomenon known as culture. The most visible layer consists of artefacts: the constructed physical and social environment, made up of unconcealed behaviours, traditional foods, clothing, written and spoken language, music, and artwork. Influencing the nature of these artefacts is the next layer: the espoused values of the cultural group. This is the conceptual process through which people justify their behaviours and actions. These are built through groups facing challenges, and the proven solutions the group comes up with to overcome those challenges (we sing the same lullabies because those lullabies have put babies to sleep for generations). And deeper still — at the core of our cultural onion — are the basic underlying assumptions the group holds: those concepts and solutions that have worked so often that they become ingrained in the psyche, to the point that they are taken for granted. These are unconscious assumptions that determine how people perceive, feel and respond to phenomena. That being said, I wanted to touch on one of the components of the first layer: visual art.
Malawian cultural identity can be observed in many pieces of art, yet it’s not often that we see reflections of ancient tradition in our contemporary artwork. The encroachment of Western ideals may be in part to blame, however there is also a general lack of awareness when it comes to showcases of local art. I’ve had some time to look at a particular series of pictures crafted by one Akulu Lipenga. The digitally-painted pieces are a collection of masks inspired by Malawian folktales.
Each mask is based on a character from Bantu oral tradition. Chiuta — the Chewa creation god — is one such character included in this series. As he often appears in stories as an old man, the mask is designed with the typical creases and lean profile of an elderly person. The most interesting masks to me are that of Mangepo and Ferume.
Mangepo is a central character in the story of man’s quest for eternal life. Promised to return from death, her husband would water her grave from which a banana plant had sprung. Out of jealousy, her husband’s other wife cut the plant, which bled, thus snuffing man’s chance at eternal life. The painting of her mask is particularly striking because of the use of green; representing nature, evergreen vegetation and thus acting as a metaphor for everlasting life. The structure of her face — specifically her lips — evokes the sense of fertility and nurturing, as the fertile soils of her grave nurtured man’s immortality.
The mask of Ferume is interesting to me for a different reason. The tale of Ferume revolves around a lion known to stalk villages for the livestock and the people. When the people would chase the lion, and it disappeared into the thickets, a man would emerge from those same bushes, unscathed and seemingly unaware that he’d been in the same space as a predatory beast. The man was of course a shapeshifter and the very lion terrorising the villagers. In the stories Ferume transforms into the animal by moving a belt up his torso, and transforms back by moving it back down. Using a mask to represent this character in his artwork, Akulu adds another dimension to transformation: how one may use a mask to — well — ‘mask’ their true identity.
These other pieces in the series are of similar quality from a technical standpoint, but perhaps what they lack is the same level of depth or context behind them. What I’m left questioning is whether that is the fault of the art or of the observer.
I do believe, however, that this series helps to bring ancient stories to a modern audience. I am genuinely more curious to learn the stories that inspired these paintings, and I look forward to seeing more visual art in this same vein of cultural preservation.
Akulu’s Masks:
