On Passage and Place: Into The Neo-Archive Sighting Black Femme Artists, our Communities and the Cultural Immortality of Drawn, Printed and Digital Media in Southern Africa

Abstract

On Passage and Place is a publication based on the theoretical framing of BLAQ NOIZE, Hauntology, Representation, Genealogy, Feminism, and the Neo-Archive. BLAQ NOIZE encapsulates the intergenerational remnants of unresolved familial experiences, otherwise categorised as memories – which are held, recreated or transmitted within and outside of Black familial spaces. The word ‘Neo’ references a name in Sesotho that translates to ‘gift’ in English, and as such, the Neo-Archive is read herein as a collection and space within which BLAQ NOIZE and/ or the ‘gifts’, contributed and created by Black people are kept, preserved and revisited. The paper expands on how the recording and participation of Black femme artists within Drawing, Print and Digital praxes in the Southern African art scene, advocates for their survival, and the survival of these media. Additionally, I discuss how in the art made between the 1980s to the 2020s, the aforementioned theoretical frameworks have become integral to the mapping and ‘sighting’ of artistic and socio-political trajectories of Black femme communities throughout Southern Africa. Furthermore, I elaborate on the ways that representations of Black femmes within Drawn, Printed and Digital media have added to the cultural immortality of this media in and beyond Southern Africa, while also maintaining that Black femmes have upheld the Neo-Archive on an intergenerational scale. The publication thus recalls the contributions of Black femmes towards the sustenance of artistic media within Southern Africa, theorizes the vitality of the Neo-Archive, and offers insight into the immortalisation of Black femme experiences, through artistic and/ or Neo-praxes.