Rehema Chachage
Untitled: Ungo/Spaceship
An installation featuring two wooden sculptures, cloves, video, sound, text and sisal rope

This is a multi-sensory installation which explores history, belonging, and all which transcend physical inheritance. It uses cultural objects to open a gateway to what did or might have happened in the distant past, but intimately connected to my present reality and sense of self. It features two wooden sculptures that take the shape of the 'ungo'.  On them, two projections appear-a video on one, and text on the other. The video features a figure playing ‘mdako’-a children’s game of throwing and catching pebbles, but in this case, what are thrown and caught are cowry shells. And, the text projection reads: “1. Peta pepeta via vyaiva, ungo navunja; 2. Peta pepea paa angani, mbingu ya saba”, a hard to translate text/proverbs, but speaks in general of escape/flight to cloud nine. A sound surrounds the installation, in it we hear a rather known (in Tanzania) childhood chant titled ‘Watoto wangu eeh… (to my children)’

Watoto wangu eeh..
Mimi mama yenu,
Sina nguvu tena,
Za kuua simba,
Simba ni mkali,
Aliua baba,
Akaua mama,
Akaua kaka,
Akaua dada,
Sasa kimbieni…
[To my children…
This is your mother,
I no longer have the strength,
To fight/kill the lion,
The lion is stong(er),
It killed (my) father,
Then it killed (my) mother,
Then it killed (my) brother
Then it killed (my) sister,
Now run…]