UKUTHWEBULA // First Meaning & Interpretation
Within South Africa's traditional Zulu culture, ukuthwebula is a spirit capturing practice that takes place immediately after death. When a person dies suddenly, umthwebuli (a person who is able to peform "ukuthwebula") captures the spirit of the person while their body is still warm. The body of the person is left behind, but a sign that a person has fallen victim to ukuthwebula is that their body doesn’t become stiff and cold as a dead being’s is supposed too - a process scientifically known as rigor mortis. The body and the spirit are not separated during ukuthwebula, but the person (still alive) is captured and an animal is put in the captured person’s body.
UKUTHWEBULA // 2nd Meaning & Interpretation
In the language of IsiZulu, also refers to the process of taking pictures. It is my belief that Zulu people transferred this meaning to the word to contextualize the process of image & spirit duplication that takes place when a photo is taken
This project
This project was created in honour of artist whose spirit I believe lives inside my own soul. Although most of the names and icons used are familiar within the art world, my own personal online audience is not as familiar with the heroes of my world. Like all my projects, this project was an experiment to create art using what we have & less about obsessing about our lack of resources to create
Photographer // Siya Zungu
Subject & Artist // Cebo Simphiwe Xulu
Title Copywrite // Thobani Khumalo
Camera // Olympus T-100 Digital Camera
Medium // Instagram & Facebook
Thank you also to Marina Dillaco for the mock-up design
For more on the process of Ukuthwebula, read here
