Lungiswa Gqunta (b.1990; Gqeberha, South Africa) is an artist working in performance, printmaking, sculpture and installation. Lungiswa Gqunta deconstructs spatial modes of exclusion and oppression by addressing the access to and ownership of land, unravelling multisensory experiences that highlight persistent social imbalances which are legacies of both patriarchal dominance and colonialism. She aims to disrupt this status quo with material references to guerrilla tactics and protest: her installations consist of quotidian objects with the potential to become weapons and means to defend in the struggle that opposes the slow violence imposed by oppression in relation to labour, racial, class and gender inequalities. Specifically catering to context and audience, Gqunta’s works provide positive references and care to people of colour, and impose discomfort, confrontation and caution in white (cube) spaces.
Hereby, Gqunta aims to reassert black people into the landscape, shedding light on sedimented knowledge, and thus creating a site for non-traditional forms of excavation in which discovery and erasure are simultaneously present. More so, she counters the PTSD that haunts society and poses forms of collective healing in which music and female strength play a crucial role. These matters are highly relevant in current times: addressing inequality, land ownership, labour as well as the pervasive, ongoing legacies of racism. Gqunta has been mentored by Dr Nomusa Makhubu, professor in Art History at the University of Cape Town and Nonzwakazi Nomacamagu Persent.
Lungiswa Gqunta has held the following solo exhibitions: ‘Sleep In Witness’ at WHATIFTHEWORLD in Cape Town (2023); ‘Tending to the Harvest of Dreams’ at the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt (2021), ‘Lungiswa Gqunta’ at Apalazzo Gallery in Brescia, Italy (2019), among others. Noteworthy group exhibitions include ‘Ancient Black Futures’ at MAAT Portugal in Lisbon, Portugal (2024); ‘Sala’ at Zeitz Mocaa in South Africa (2024), ‘To Echo a Shadow’ at NXTHVN in Connecticut, USA (2024), ‘Tounges of Fire’ at Kunsthal Trondheim in Trondheim, Norway (2024); and ‘Wild Grass: Our Lives – Yokohama Triennial’ at Yokohama Museum of Art in Yokohama, Japan (2024), among others. Gqunta’s work forms part of the public collections of the Kunsthaus Museum, Zurich, KADIST, Paris, Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, The University of Cape Town and Zeitz MOCAA Cape Town. Gqunta has been an artist in residence at the Rjiksakademie in Amsterdam; Gasworks in London and Dumberton Oaks in Washington DC.
