Walking towards a camera obscura

Abstract

The paper is located within the wider field of decolonial practice where those of us who were previously marginalized from ‘mainstream’ knowledge production by colonialism and its structures address the question of how we navigate ways of knowing from our own point of view. The paper places the concept of ‘walking about’ in relation to the Khelobedu saying ‘go sepela ke go bona’, both of which have parallels with the methodologies that Walter Benjamin espoused through the figure of the flâneur. The paper tracks my walkabouts as I follow the travels of several Balobedu from north-eastern South Africa to Berlin in 1897, by travelling to Berlin and other contemporary art centres myself. The practice of travelling offered opportunities in the form of dream as a khelobedu text, introduced me to installation art and led me to experiment with the idea and practice of the camera obscura, allowing me to confront some of the limits of photographic documentation. Overall, the paper argues that ‘walking about’ as a methodology resolves some of the difficulties with ideas of visuality associated with khelobedu and with mediating a text that demands a critical awareness of the relationship between the senses. The camera obscura, as a space that houses a body, becomes this medium and the text.