Nkhensani Rihlampfu
2021
Weaving together the present and the past, the sculptures of Nkhensani Rihlampfu pay homage to the often overlooked in our communities.
Fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, waking up at dawn to their labour-intensive employment obligations.
These men and women serve as the backbone of our country, building the houses we live in, the offices we work in, farming the food we eat and mining the minerals we export.
Their jobs are ones of strain, health hazardous and diminutive remuneration, and yet it is through their contribution to society that we are all able to survive.
Weaving the infrastructure of the country, their well-being is often negatively affected without having claim to inherit or reap the fruits of their labour.
Feeling the pressure and the weight of our poor social economic standing and their labour-intensive employment, Nkhensani visually suggests heavy loads on their shoulders as they continue to question their existence and relativeness to the land they work.
Who does the land belong to that the farmers work on? who profits the most from the fruits of the mine? who’s life is put at risk for a certain percentage of the country to have their essential services delivered?
Digging for the truth, how did we end up here? How does one man’s labour turn into another mans gold? How is it that the rewards for the hardest of working persons is this futile, and how is all of this justified?
Digging for their history, questioning their past, their lineage as they try and carve better futures for their offsprings and the ones coming after them. These grave diggers, construction workers, miners, farm workers, contractors, plumbers, street cleaners have bred and raised doctors, nurses, accountants, engineers, teachers and yet still go heavily unappreciated.
The works serve as a song of praise by the artist, thanking them for their contribution to society, appreciating how they break up and move the earth for us, letting them know that the work they do does not go unnoticed, that although their blue overalls often play in the background of our daily lives, they are seen and he sees them
