Imfuduko

Imfuduko was made in response to Mafika Gwala’s 1977 poem Getting off the Ride, which reflects on the experiences of Black South Africans under apartheid, including forced removals, poverty, violence and displacement. The title Imfuduko means “migration” in both isiZulu and isiXhosa. I was interested in migration not simply as physical movement, but as the movement of people through difficult conditions in search of another place, another reality, or another way of being. In the work, the figures move through a dark and uncertain environment, appearing to move towards something beyond what surrounds them. I was thinking about how Black people have continuously had to move, adapt and imagine beyond circumstances imposed upon them. The work therefore holds both the weight of displacement and the possibility of transformation. This also connects to the artist’s broader interest in movement between perspectives. Gwala’s poem moves through different people and experiences, and Magoso responds to this by translating that movement into a visual space, where the figures embody different experiences of displacement, survival and the possibility of another future.