I bought this roll of brown paper and kept it in the studio for a while, and kept looking and it, as I didn’t know what to do with it. I kept it there for a month or so, thinking and contemplating about it, occasionally taking small walks, and eating drinking in the bars alone, thinking about the brown paper. Later, I decided to tear the paper in different pieces, pieces that reflect my thinking process now and my current experience of the city of Malmo. At the moment the art work seems to be a dripping paint on piece of collage, it have a musical feel on it. I decided that it is a first thought score, a musical score for performance, and that it will be a long term project that I will build and it is about the process of thinking and how my mind originate or establishes ideas.

First Thought. Work in progress.

First thought is based on the origin and the actual spark of an idea before one researches and execute it as a project. It is about using the idea as raw as possible. This forces one to rely more on the capability of thinking in order to capture images in the mind. In this process, ideas written or sketched down are already secondary and exhausted, as they change form when one rewrites and sketch them on a piece of paper. For example, when I create a painting, I regard the process as the first thought, as it is in motion and fresh in the mind. When the painting is done it is no longer fresh but it is frozen, and I present it as a still, dead image, no longer as “once a great idea”.

The origin of my ideas comes from thinking. When I think, I think in movement, or in moving imagery. There for, the painting idea is sparked by thinking about real events with real life element in them. When I talk about life elements I am referring to sound and atmosphere caused by time and movement through my observation and analysis of things. My interaction with Sweden or city of Malmo involve patches and pieces of unprocessed thoughts in movement and sound. It is about listening thinking and observing. This has been the most important part of my creativity, even before researching the idea for an art work, the thinking part that lead to that idea is the most exciting part.

By mere luck and pure chance I met Elen and Emelie of Waileth & Badorn through rather thrown away sort of display of their business cards.

Now, the plan is to work with dance duo Elen and Emelie of Waileth & Bardon as well as musicians from Malmo to spontaneously transform the score into music and body movement choreographies. The idea is to also maintain the figurative element which is prominent in my paintings. These artists are required not to brainstorm or carefully plan the project or think about the meaning of the artwork, but to use more of their feelings and thinking to uncover what is in my mind by studying the Imagery Score. The Score itself is a work in progress for a long term project and it will be used for a collection of First thoughts that will connect artists from Sweden and South Africa, to work together on a bigger project involving the city of Malmo and city of Cape Town.

The experimental presentation of this work will take place at Danscentrum studios in Malmo, While I am working to a more advanced Multi-media theatre performance of this work, which will take place in Cape Town early 2018, where Waileth & Bardon will be invited to work with Cape Town dancers and musicians on this piece. I am hoping that after we bring this piece back to Malmo where it all began, to work with artists from here on this project.

Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi