We are proud to present two works by Manju Jatta on ed-art.se! Manju Jatta graduated from the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts last spring, and has previously studied at Konstfack and worked in the world of film.
Jatta's practice moves between history and knowledge preservation, with a focus on blackness and Swedishness, and the history of blackness in the Nordic countries. In his work, he draws inspiration from both West African oral traditions and a Nordic heritage, and allows different forms of knowledge preservation to come together.
– I work primarily in the color range between blue and black. Indigo and cyanotype often recur, like bruises that are simultaneously signs that damage has occurred and that healing is underway. Through the Old Norse word Blár, which meant both blue and black, I explore both color and our history.
In Jatta's work, there is a theoretical anchoring with recurring connections to Afro-pessimistic thinkers as well as cultural theorist Fred Moten's concept of Blur, to create space for the complexity and movement of blackness and the fact that it cannot be captured in anything solid or static. Presence and rhythm are allowed to speak, without establishing anything unambiguous.
– The imprint is a constant in my work, the body's own imprint or what is carved into a surface. I work with the imprint that cannot be fixed, determined, or be too strong a statement.
In DM I and II, Jatta continues this work, and explores blackness as dark matter - a presence that cannot be fixed but still shapes what it surrounds. Through the carving, traces and signs emerge that do not explain but displace, a communication beyond readability.
– I work with a raw print where the ink is placed on the plate without being smoothed out to perfection, so that each print becomes a direct extension of the body. The gesture through which the image is created emerges.
In this way, Manju Jatta thinks that the image can be experienced as a remnant of an action - akin to the West African singer and storyteller the griot's knowledge preservation, or the rune carver's history preservation, where the bodily encounter with what is told becomes part of the meaning itself.
