Umaskhenkethe Likhaya Lam

 

Nobukho Nqaba

South African, b.1992

Umaskhenkethe Likhaya Lam

2012

Photograph

South Africa

AKAA Art Fair, Paris, France

This photograph shows the artist Nobukho Nqaba, focused within South Africa, dressed in “China bags” that symbolize migration. The bags are filled with clothing and food for immigrants traveling to their new destination. For Nqaba, these bags held memories of travel from the Eastern Cape to Cape Town and served as physical ties to her past. These items serve as congealed forms of stress of an international immigrant. As she’s surrounded by these objects of stress and movement, they merge with her, and become a part of her identity. The bags encapsulate her, binding them to her memory and her body. Subsequently, these bags are now positive reminders of her strength and experience as a migrant, each bag carried across a different journey. Natives may be unaware of the pressure there can be for immigrants, and Umaskhenkethe Likhaya Lam opens dialogue on this often-invisible aspect of mental health for immigrants. 

Tyrese Duncan-Moore ’22

Bibliography

1.  Kpanake, Lonzozou. “Cultural Concepts of the Person and Mental Health in Africa.” Transcultural Psychiatry 55, no. 2 (April 2018): 198–218. doi:10.1177/1363461517749435.

This article focuses on viewing how therapists can treat African patients. Their cultural values reveal potential underlying mental illnesses.

1.  Huang, Mingwei. “The Foreign and the Familiar: Reading the China Bag in South Africa.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, (February 2019). doi:10.1177/1367877919831015.

This article focuses on the history of China bags and analyzes its significance for immigrant communities.

1. Steel, Jennifer L., Andrea C. Dunlavy, Collette E. Harding, and Tö Theorell. “The Psychological Consequences of Pre-Emigration Trauma and Post-Migration Stress in Refugees and Immigrants from Africa.” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health 19, no. 3 (06, 2017): 523-532. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10903-016-0478-z. https://login.ezproxy.bowdoin.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1890005427?accountid=9681.

More detail and analysis of the mental health consequences of being an African immigrant are covered within this article.

1. “Nobukho Nqaba.” ART MEETS. Accessed May 11, 2019. http://artmeets.agency/nobukho-nqaba.

The artist is covered within this article, as well as the meaning of the exhibition to the artist.