Nkhensani Mkhari

POROUS BORDERS

There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. - Leonard Cohen

Time, space and colour. This is how Nkhensani Mkhari invites you into the photographic world he conjures. The human figures are not always fully revealed, they lurk in the shadows. Their faces blurred, hidden, or partially covered. Mkhari says "I hide people because of the politics…'' He is referring to the politics of representation which belabours a lot of black photography. Not surprisingly, the question of power is paramount, and the representation of the uneven play of power is precisely rendered. 

But even when people are not in the frame, their presence is suggested by something else; lights in a building, a moving vehicle, or a hand hugging a tree. And when the human figures are fully present, they are on the go, or busy. Or they occupy their space with elegance. Mkhari’s technique spotlights details we tend to overlook. And in this body of work, he sees the people in the margins. 

What is also striking is the awareness of place and space, and how it is occupied. Mkhari, like his subjects, is always lurking in the shadows with his camera. He photographs the crevices others miss out, or ignore. And the violence of these places is present - but never a spectacle. Mkhari is concerned with structures, contours, geography, atmosphere - he posits photography as a conversation with himself and the world around him.

His art is structured around a very particular operation, the labored translation of emotion into form, of language into visual narratives. It is as though we can feel him searching for the right cognates. In Mkhari's usage of the title, Porous Borders, it is as if he is pointing less to real physical boundaries than to a set of associations or memories. He says,

Porous Borders is a representation of this intersection where my praxis of photographing notable spaces and places I've had special memories in and photographing myself and the people around me and the spaces I live(d) in intersect.

And the accompanying book, produced in a set of five, is an art object that summons us to be immersed in this visually captivating journey. By incorporating his photo archives, Mkhari provides an eminently readable catalog full of movement and facilitates a crossing of all kinds of invisible boundaries. Indeed, if there is one overriding commonality between the very different figures and contexts represented here, it is that they are captured in moments of fragile but indefinite transition.

- Tinashe Mushakavanhu