Bristol-based Libita Sibungu grew up in Cornwall, this experience has informed their ongoing exploration into space and place spoken through the movements of black and brown bodies in rural landscapes. With collective work, storytelling and performance, Sibungu gathers and samples displaced voices into holding and healing environments to explore sites of remembrance. The project continuum; Quantum Ghost (2019) is a lament to memory comprising a series of large-scale photograms, an immersive sound installation, and a programme of live performances. Mapping a journey through archives and territories related to Sibungu’s heritage, connecting the mining regions of Namibia and Cornwall, revealing how the echoes of colonialism and diasporic migration reverberate through the deep-time of geology.
In performance, Sibungu uses electronic tools such as guitar pedals, mics and vocal effects to construct themselves as a host of polyphonic identities and memories. This assemblage approach expands to explorations of collaboration, and the generative potential in processing documentation of live works. Her 2019 performance I am not my, my injuries are healed now but I still don’t remember things, O.E.Butler, sees a live reading of a script improvised with voice distortion to create multiple tones, pitches and characters, responding to the energy of the room, audio and the positioning of an instructional text. Accompanied by a live electronic soundscape, the set consists of a floor covered in silver survival blankets, masking beneath it a pool of wet clay which the body sinks into, leaving behind a trace of time and movement.