‘When We See Us’ Sonic Engagement with Neo Muyanga
Join us for a sonic engagement with South African composer and sound artist Neo Muyanga on Friday, 14 July 2023 at 6.30 pm. During this session, Muyanga will offer insights into his compilation of the sonic design which accompanies the When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA.
This interactive event will enable audiences to engage in deep listening as they move through the various rooms of the exhibition and participate in a discussion around music from the last 100 years, from various Black geographies led by Muyanga.
When We See Us celebrates the resilience, essence, and political charge of Black joy. The exhibition is organised around six themes: The Everyday, Joy and Revelry, Repose, Sensuality, Spirituality, and Triumph and Emancipation. Figurative painting by Black artists has risen to a new prominence over the last decade and this exhibition connects these practices, revealing deeper historic contexts and networks of a complex and underrepresented genealogy, stemming from African and Black modernities.
When We See Us is currently on view at Zeitz MOCAA until 3 September 2023
Zeitz MOCAA’s curatorial and exhibition programming is generously supported by Gucci.
Date and time:
Friday, 14 July 2023
6.30 pm to 8 pm SAST
Venue: Level 3 at Zeitz MOCAA
Cost: FREE but booking is essential as space is limited.
Book your seat HERE
About Neo Muyanga:
Neo Muyanga is a composer and installation artist born in Soweto, South Africa. He studied in Italy before returning to South Africa to co-found the critically acclaimed acoustic guitar duo, BLK Sonshine with Masauko Chipembere in 1996. Some of his notable collaborations include working with William Kentridge, Paco Pena, John Kani, The Royal Shakespeare Company and the Handspring Puppet Company. He’s been awarded Composer in Residence Fellowships with the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town, Duke University in North Carolina, and the University of California Irvine’s Humanities Research Institute.
Muyanga’s work navigates new opera, improvisation, and African idiomatic song. His research and performance interests include investigations and explorations of the aesthetics of protest song, with a specific focus on opera within the Black community in South Africa, and more broadly concerning the history of musical storytelling in the global south.
He is one of the co-founders of the Pan African Space Station – a portal for contemporary African music and art online as well as the Spier poetry festival. Muyanga recently opened his first solo show, A Mass of Cyborgs (2022), at The Center for Art, Research and Alliances in New York, USA. He lives and works out of Cape Town.
