Mzonke Maloney: "This is the first of many visual gestures emanating from an ongoing conversation between me and my friend TK. For many years him and I have tried to collaborate, without much success. The initial attempts are stark documents of the aggressive energy that characterised the material he was making in the early years of his career. Things that we couldn’t quite bottle up and make coherent.
Trying to figure out how best to articulate this thing that can’t quite be explained, the images we were making were violent and maybe a little careless. This was no way to make images of people you love. And yes the music had this aggressive edge to it but what he was saying was more complicated than that. What we were making wasn’t quite capturing the thing, the way we knew it to be. Many of those photographed in those works, either passed on or went to jail. I’m glad we made those images but might have been regretful had it come out.
Last year he spent some time at my grandmother’s house we had not intended on making anything, he just wanted a moment to think. This time our conversation was different, we kept talking about this idea of holiness as a visual space to explore within the widening void and maybe this video in some way has something to do with that.
Jason Prins (DOP) and I have also been insistent on experimenting with certain shooting styles and approaches - trying to destabilise our own notions and understanding of how to make things. He’s very generous in this way.