Libita Clayton

By incorporating sound, performance, photogrammetry, text and sound into her installations, Libita Clayton’s work seeks to uncover and rearticulate buried testimonies, examine the way in which bodies are shaped by migration and colonialism, and discuss how they interrelate with landscapes, geologies and topographies. Clayton’s practice drills beneath the surface, examining the traces and surreptitious sediments of colonialism, capitalist extraction and diasporic migration. It spans disparate yet interrelated landmasses, for example – in Quantum Ghost (2019) – connecting the mining regions of Namibia and Cornwall. In this project, she weaves together remnants of her own history, specifically the traces of her father, a member of SWAPO (South-West Africa People’s Organisation) – a group fighting for Namibia’s liberation from Apartheid – who moved to Cornwall to study mining engineering. In the resulting installation, Clayton constructed a red-lit tunnel, constructed from the cob and deep sonic soundwaves imitating the swell of noise inside a mineshaft. Outside the tunnel, through pressing personal artefacts and mined objects against the photosensitive paper, Clayton made what resembled constellations of stars, an apt visualisation of the transtemporal, universal web of connections weaved throughout her practice.