Exhibition Details
What do our oceans remember? The shifting of the continents? Migrating schools of fish and mammals? The movement of ships transporting enslaved peoples across the Atlantic? The breath of those who sought freedom? These questions animate Dineo Seshee Bopape’s multichannel sound and video installation Lerato laka le a phela le a phela le a phela/My love is alive, is alive, is alive (2022). Based in South Africa, Bopape brings together video, sound, and natural materials in works that consider how the social, political, and spiritual histories of the African diaspora inhabit the physical world around us.
Additional Details
Lerato laka le a phela pays homage to the 12 million enslaved people who crossed the Atlantic—those who survived and those who fled into the waters to seek sanctuary. Across three screens, the artist is seen submerging her hands and placing fruit, flowers, and various libations in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Jamaica. Audio elements are incorporated through Bopape’s rhythmic drumming of the water and her singing in her mother tongue, Sepedi. The work was inspired by the whip-lacerated back of an African American man known only as Peter (formerly misnamed Gordon), who escaped American slavery in the 18th century and whose story of resilience of spirit continues to be told through a widely circulated photograph.
Location
MoMA
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019
Image: Still from Lerato laka le a phela le a phela le a phela/My love is alive, is alive, is alive, Dineo Seshee Bopape, 2022 / courtesy of MoMA