The Brooklyn Rail

Kapwani Kiwanga, an internationally recognized Canadian artist based in Paris, is known for her research-driven practice, which delves into marginalized or overlooked historical narratives. As an interdisciplinary artist, Kiwanga employs various mediums including sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance to explore and convey her findings and ideas. Her work is a call to inspire and encourage introspective examinations of collective responsibility for world history.

Kiwanga's commitment to her research is evident in Remediation—her first major survey exhibition in Canada. Co-curated by November Paynter and Johan Lundh, this exhibition shows how art can subvert established systems of power, recontextualizing them within both the realm of art and broader historical contexts. Kiwanga's numerous imaginative projects in the exhibition showcase a distinctive aesthetic vocabulary that unveils marginalized aspects of world history and prompts viewers to reassess existing social and historical structures, inspiring them to envision alternative pathways for the future.

At the center of the exhibition stands Keyhole (2023), a steel reconstruction of a garden of prairie plants and flowers that originated in Lesotho, a small landlocked country surrounded by South Africa. Initially designed for individuals facing illness or physical limitations, these gardens were a humanitarian response to Lesotho's high HIV/AIDS rates in the mid-1990s. Keyhole gardens are designed for convenience, eliminating the need for bending over and providing support for those in need. Known for their permaculture design and the ability to grow valuable crops through succession planting, they gained popularity over time among healthy individuals as kitchen gardens. Constructed with layers of compost, manure, wood ash, and nutrient-rich materials, keyhole gardens are highly productive and drought-resistant.

Kiwanga's version of the keyhole garden is populated with plants sourced from local growers in Saskatchewan. The selected plants, including broadleaf cattail, prairie coneflower, purple prairie clover, prairie sunflower, and corn, among others, are chosen for their filtering and regenerating qualities. The garden is supported by LED grow lights and air pumps built into the structure. Keyhole serves as a vital introduction to Kiwanga's practice and the depth of her research that investigates the impact of historical colonialism and present-day globalism on resource-rich areas worldwide, especially African countries.

One of her newer sculptures, Residue (2023), is a striking example of this exploration. The work features two gentle concave slopes cut into temporary drywalls behind the keyhole garden, creating an architectural sculpture covered in dried banana leaves. The work is grounded in research on chlordecone, a pesticide used on banana trees that was banned globally for its toxicity in 2009, expanding Kiwanga's explorations of extractive industries and plantation economies.

In the outer gallery, Kiwanga presents Elliptical Field (2023), a series of sculptures and furniture using sisal, a fiber material derived from the flowering plant Agave sisalana. Sisal is abundant in Tanzania, where the artist's parental family resides, although it is not native to the region. It was introduced to Africa illegally by German plantation owners for large-scale cultivation. Used for making ropes and twines, it has become one of the country's major exports.

Kiwanga emphasizes the significance of the material through a series of large hanging structures. Two oval steel rings, descending from the ceiling, are partially covered by sisal. While one appears to envelop a straight rod that ascends the third quarter of the oval structure, the other is given a clean diagonal cut. Both structures seem to hover in the gallery, allowing visitors to peer through their openings at a monumental curtain wall entirely covered in sisal hairs. The wall gracefully curves into a gentle concave, extending a welcoming gesture that invites visitors to approach and examine the material in its raw form.

In the corner of the gallery, opposite the curtain wall, curators have placed modernist-looking lounge chairs assembled from rectangular wood panels. The chairs' backs and seats are crafted with sisal twines, the same material Kiwanga used to weave diamond-shaped patterns on the surfaces. As a comprehensive installation, Elliptical Field establishes a connection between Tanzania's past and future through the artist’s contemporary illustration of her research into the country’s history. Kiwanga appropriates the formal language of minimalism to encourage a nuanced reevaluation of the historicization of narratives and their ability to influence forms, shaping the human condition in the present.

Continuing the work with historical material, the inner gallery houses a selection of works from Kiwanga's series “Vivarium” (2020 – 2023). These sculptures draw parallels to Wardian cases, early nineteenth-century predecessors of present-day terrariums and vivariums used to transport perishable goods during long sea voyages. Kiwanga's sculptures comprise PVC inflatable bubbles emerging from and around geometric steel composites. The organic shapes of the bubbles suggest specific plants that the artist envisions for each inflatable. The environment inside the inflatable becomes a terrarium, a greenhouse, or a shelter from the sharp steel on the exterior. Inside the bubbles is where Kiwanga imagines plants, and perhaps other living creatures, will exist in a future that climate change has devastated.

A central theme in Kiwanga's work is the significance of agriculture and plants in shaping societal functions. Through diverse work and material, the artist discusses the concept of "exit strategies" to reframe challenging or traumatic historical events. As illustrated in many works in this survey exhibition, her research delves into botany and its intertwined relationship with global power dynamics. Kiwanga’s work revolves around plants and their potential to uniquely contribute to environmental remediation, prompting contemplation of humanity's connection to nature and its role in the broader ecosystem.