U LILA A HU THUSI ( 2025 )

U LILA A HU THUSI (2025/26)

By Rofhiwa Kutama 

Photography

U Lila A Hu Thusi draws from a TshiVenda proverb often translated as crying does not help, yet its meaning extends beyond a dismissal of emotion. The proverb speaks to endurance an understanding that while pain is present, remaining within it does not transform one’s circumstances.

In this work, that tension is held through the body. The subject’s expression gestures toward joy, yet it is not uncomplicated. The smile, adorned with shimmering orange stones, becomes both a release and a performance a visible insistence on lightness despite what may remain unspoken beneath the surface.

The use of orange operates as a central force within the image. It radiates warmth, vitality, and energy, but also intensifies the moment, refusing to settle into simplicity. Rather than resolving the emotion, the colour amplifies it creating a space where joy and endurance coexist.

The surrounding darkness plays an equally important role. The face does not fully reveal itself; it emerges selectively through light. This restraint allows the image to resist full legibility, holding back just enough to maintain intimacy and complexity. What is seen is only partial, and what remains unseen carries equal weight.

Within the context of Sedza Zwau, the work becomes a meditation on resilience not as the absence of pain, but as the decision to move through it. It asks not whether one feels, but how one chooses to remain within feeling, and what it means to carry light in moments where it is not guaranteed.