Malaika Temba D.C., 1996

Hizi ni za ukweli, these are the facts:

There are layers upon layers in seeing and feeling, there are connections to be made, there will always be paradoxes. Woven, knit and silk-screened fabrics and textile collages are my media. My lens is global, nourished by experiences growing up as a Tanzanian-American across Saudi Arabia, Uganda, South Africa and Morocco and the U.S. I use paint, stamps, stencils, embroidery and spray paint layered over innovative and complex textile processes to distill cultural and emotional ideas, and convey historical truths in a contemporary platform.

The scale of my work seeks to monumentalize these concepts, inviting the viewer into an immersive seeing experience and also convoking larger cultural systems. At its core is the tension between the contemporary (graphic design, color theory, branding, fast-advertising and the use of machines) and the more historic, tactile ancestral techniques and small-scale artisanry.

This year, my goal is to create a series that builds on a piece I created in 2021, "Elezyia Mshimbika (For the Ancestors)." For that work, I collaged images to create an industrial machine file, then knit the piece in four panels. Working at that scale made the challenges clear, but inspired me to keep going. The Studio Museum residency would enable me to elaborate and intensify this vision, and fully dive into the creation of this new work. The residency would also provide key exposure to organizations and institutions that support art at a public scale.

What will I explore in this series, beyond pushing technical boundaries and tapping new kinds of visual dynamism?  Textiles naturally translate the beauty that is inherent in human labor and production. At the same time, my work critiques gendered and feminized concepts of softness and sweetness as they relate to textiles, domesticity, and physical labor. It reflects the sense of responsibility, time, attention and patience expected of women, in their traditional roles as comforters, nurturers, protectors - even as their labor is hard and unceasing. 

Making art is my process of understanding the world. It's how I think, how I emote, and how I say-it-with-my-chest. It is a testament to the struggles of Black womanhood, interpersonal relationships, undigested reflections. I want it to be a monument to those obligations of emotional labor, and also a record of vulnerability, sarcasm, and evidence of bliss - distilled, fragmented and abstracted. I refuse to feel alienated while feeling so intensely human.