'Witness' is my installation for the 12th edition of the Liverpool Biennial 2023.
Drawing: The Return, 2018. Sculpture: A Prayer For safe Passage (commission for the Biennial), 2023.
Image credit above and below: Mark McNully.
Installation in the Victoria Gallery, Liverpool. Other artists at the same venue: Antonio Obá and Gala Porras-Kim.
Image on left: Oracle Of Our Forebears, 2023 (Biennial commission). Image on the right: The Return, 2018. Sculpture: A Prayer For Safe Passage, 2023 (Biennial Commission)
![Charmaine Watkiss, Liverpool Biennial, Khanyisile Mbongwa](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/ae8be0b360043f70c18ab406911f3415/55d99d5d-a67e-4f64-9f3f-9f3940ef1904_rw_1200.jpg?h=b5f1bfcd2b931eadd08ba085f53ff5d1)
Ode to the Land of Wood and Water, 2023. Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial 2023.
![Charmaine Watkiss, Liverpool Biennial, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Botanical Legacies](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/ae8be0b360043f70c18ab406911f3415/1a55b8b9-e4ba-4e89-a1a6-b00663c13b31_rw_1200.jpg?h=f5cdf48e3fbbf669639040d2e71d8ee5)
Oracle of our Forebears, 2023. Commissined by Livepool Biennial 2023.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/ae8be0b360043f70c18ab406911f3415/d0916d10-1e2a-4bc5-a42c-7f9fa801b5a3_rw_1200.jpg?h=93b74fd9da5f589d884f7c4747c8e5f0)
The Return, 2018
My installation called 'Witness’ was made for the 12th edition of the Liverpool Biennial.
‘uMoya: The sacred Return of Lost Things’ - the theme for the biennial; addresses the history and temperament of the city of Liverpool and is a call for ancestral and indigenous forms of knowledge, wisdom and healing. In the isiZulu language, ‘uMoya’ means spirit, breath, air, climate and wind.
‘uMoya: The sacred Return of Lost Things’ - the theme for the biennial; addresses the history and temperament of the city of Liverpool and is a call for ancestral and indigenous forms of knowledge, wisdom and healing. In the isiZulu language, ‘uMoya’ means spirit, breath, air, climate and wind.
The festival which runs from 17 June - 10 September 2023; explores the ways in which people and objects have the potential to manifest power as they move across the world, while acknowledging the continued losses of the past. It draws a line from the ongoing Catastrophes caused by colonialism towards an insistence on being truly Alive.
I was commissioned to create three works for the Biennial, Oracle Of Our Forebears, 2023, A Prayer For safe Passage (sculpture), 2023 and Ode to the Land of Wood and Water, 2023
Artists: Albert Ibokwe Khoza (South Africa); Antonio Obá (Brazil); Belinda Kazeem-Kaminski (Austria); Benoît Piéron (France); Binta Diaw (Senegal/Italy); Brook Andrew (Wiradjuri/Australia); Charmaine Watkiss (UK); David Aguacheiro (Mozambique); Edgar Calel (Guatemala); Eleng Luluan (Rukai Nation/Taiwan); Fátima Rodrigo Gonzales (Peru); Francis Offman (Italy/Rwanda); Gala Porras-Kim (Colombia/USA); Guadalupe Maravilla (El Salvador/USA); Isa do Rosário (Brazil); Julien Creuzet (Martinique/France); Katy'taya Catitu Tayassu (Brazil/France); Kent Chan (Singapore/The Netherlands); Lorin Sookool (South Africa); Lubaina Himid (UK); Lungiswa Gqunta (South Africa); Melanie Manchot (Germany/UK); Nicholas Galanin (USA); Nolan Oswald Dennis (South Africa/Zambia); Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum (Botswana/Canada/The Netherlands); Rahima Gambo (Nigeria); Rahmi Hamzi (Palestine); Raisa Kabir (UK/Bangladesh); Ranti Bam (Nigeria/UK); Rudy Loewe (UK); Sandra Suubi (Uganda); Sepideh Rahaa (Iran/Finland); Shannon Alonzo (Trinidad & Tobago); Torkwase Dyson (USA); Unmute Dance Theatre (South Africa).