Amutse’s Afrofuture Debuts with a Bang

Namafu Amutse’s first exhibition opens with a bang. It’s the sound of an unidentified flying object hurtling to earth, breaking open in the centre of the city and revealing a startling new talent seemingly sent from another dimension.

The massive crowd that gathers to watch Amutse emerge, sipping glacially on French 75s, is fitting to such mind-bending interruption. Fellow artists, admirers, gallery owners and the uninitiated mill around the multidisciplinary artist’s multimedia pop-up exhibition, stylishly curated by EFANO EFANO Gallery and parceled between Café Prestige and Shop 3 in Windhoek in awe.

Perusing what the artist has titled ‘Bright Eyes into Afrofuturism’, patrons pause in front of a world of futuristic alter egos, cosmic characters and post-apocalyptic beings. The motif of the murmurs that ripple through the electric evening reveal few can believe that, at just 22 years old, the self-taught photographer and film-maker (‘Mukumo’, 2020) is already so assuredly on her way.

Previously featured by Afropunk, People’s Stories Project and Doek! Literary Magazine, Amutse’s photography is a place in which her imagination can build worlds, intuit and run wild with overlapping ideas and aesthetics drawn from influences as diverse as ‘Mad Max’, feminism, history, textiles and material, her culture, her coastal upbringing and the frequent movie rental excursions she enjoyed with her father as a child.

“What inspires me about this genre is the idea of what the future could be, that possibility and allowing my imagination to take me to places,” says Amutse whose curiosity about Afrofuturism began late last year. “As humans, sometimes I wonder if we are done evolving. I wonder what we will look like 500 years from now.”

In a future or inter-dimensional triptych titled ‘Ufaman’ (Namafu backwards), Amutse imagines the evolution of eyes. Creating a shimmer-skinned, feather-eyed turquoise version of herself, the artist considers what we perceive when what we are used to seeing is no longer accessible to us.

“In portrait photography, the eyes play a huge role. They tell a story. It’s not even something I, as a photographer, can control. In that moment, the subject chooses to convey something through their eyes and I guess everyone gets to dive into their eyes and discover what that means for themselves,” says Amutse.

“Ufaman comes from a people whose eyes are basically covered by these feathers and they only reveal their eyes to people they deem worthy of seeing. She gets to decide that for herself. Being from the coast, I see her people as people from the ocean.”

Moving from the ocean to land in an Afrofuturist offering often set in the natural world, Amutse presents ‘Breathe’. A steampunk portrait and reminder to keep breathing that nods to the current pandemic in its metallic oxygen mask and feeling of isolation.

Experimental, promising and concerned with access to water, imagining the future of the Aawambo people as well as the black futures largely absent from the post-apocalyptic films that inspire her, Amutse makes her debut with verve and an undeniable eye for visual storytelling.

“Honestly, when I watch ‘Mad Max’, I realise there are barely any black people in it”, says ­Amutse, who knows to build the worlds she wants to live in. “For me, this showcase is a reminder that we, as black people, are also part of the future. We will make it to the post-apocalyptic world. We will be in space. We’ll be everywhere.”

Thrilled by her hugely successful opening and intent on fashioning a life in which she can simply create every day and some day write and direct feature films, it’s clear that in Amutse’s time-halting images of water, her otherworldly alter egos and bold conceptions of the cosmos, the bright eyes of the exhibition title are her own.

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