Imoved to South Africa in 2016. For close to a decade I’ve lived, studied and worked in Johannesburg. So that makes me an expatriate, right?
If the funny looks I’ve got every time I’ve described myself as such are anything to go by, that’s actually wrong. At these times, I’ve often been told that I’m an immigrant.
But what’s the difference?
The more I’ve looked for a coherent explanation, the more I’ve landed on the conclusion that it’s a distinction that has everything to do with race and country of origin.
Immigrants are black and brown people who come from countries in the Global South, including nations in Africa. Expatriates, on the other hand, are typically white people who come from Europe and other parts of the Global North.
Immigrants tend to enter the country illegally to steal jobs and other opportunities from born-and-bred citizens or engage in criminal activities. Meanwhile, expatriates always enter the country through the proper channels and come to share their professional expertise, often filling positions that can’t be filled by citizens, and contribute to the country’s development and prosperity.
This is a popular narrative about immigration to South Africa, often stoked by politicians eager to scapegoat “the other” for their own failures, which at various points over the course of the country’s recent history, has led to violent outbursts colloquially described as xenophobic uprisings or attacks.
It’s a thorny, complicated issue that has generated endless debate. And as a black man of Motswana and Tanzanian heritage, who has called South Africa home for nearly 10 years, I think about this often, and was forced to think about it again when I visited the Stellenbosch Triennale this past weekend.
Out of 16 works created by artists from across the world over just 10 days using only materials available in the immediate environment, one in particular caught my attention.
It was an installation by the Congolese visual artist Alexandre Kyungu Mwilambwe.
Walking into a room at the Oude Libertas, I’m struck by a door with a particular shape carved out of it. I can’t be sure but it looks like the shape of a country or at least part of one. I then see that same shape, the extracted piece of the door, lying on the ground and it’s connected to a series of other similar shapes.
The surrounding wall is painted a deep blue and as I trace the shape I discover a tower in the centre of the room, made up of old wooden crates, the type you might find in a warehouse on the outskirts of town. Hung around the crates are inflated black rubber inner tubes.
The 32-year-old Mwilambwe, who originates from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), says his piece grapples with questions of national boundaries and migration.
He tells me the shapes he carved out of the doors represent the Mediterranean Sea, which millions of people have sought to use as a passage to Europe, often fleeing war, persecution, poverty and political instability in their home countries.
Hundreds of thousands of people attempt the journey each year, navigating extremely dangerous conditions. The Mediterranean is considered one of the deadliest migration routes in the world as thousands have drowned or gone missing.
The tower of wooden crates represents a makeshift boat for sea travel while the rubber inner tubes are often worn by sea travellers to keep them afloat should they get thrown into the unpredictable waters.
This image of a perilous voyage across the Mediterranean evokes a third category to add to immigrant and expatriate: refugee.
“My work blends painting, drawing, sculpture and installation to explore the complex themes of migration, identity, borders and space,” says Mwilambwe.
“I delve deeply into the intersections of urban cartography and the traditional practice of body scarification (nzoloko) using unconventional materials like wood doors and rubber to weave a rich narrative of cultural and personal histories.”
The work’s title Pumizi Ni Kitumahi Kwa Mahisha Ya Kesho is a Swahili phrase which can be translated as “Breath: the only hope for tomorrow”.
The title speaks to the Triennale’s overall theme of Ba’zinzile: A Rehearsal for Breathing but, more specifically, it speaks to the breath inside the rubber tubes which allows for movement across the sea.
“My work started as an engagement with the important question of the relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit and move across,” says Mwilambwe.
“That question moved me to interrogate maps and the more I studied them the more I started to feel that the map is not a conception of Africa but rather a product of the West. That led me to consider what Africa would look like if the Berlin Conference and the colonial moment had never happened.”
Taking place in 1884 and 1885, the Berlin Conference was where European powers divided Africa among themselves, arbitrarily creating borders that often cut across tribal kingdoms. My own mother’s tribe, the Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela, can be found in the Kgatleng District in the south-eastern part of Botswana and in Moruleng in the North West province of South Africa. A tribe occupying land in two different countries yet ruled by the same king or kgosikgolo.
“Maps are the universal element I’m using to interrogate the question of borders,” says Mwilambwe. “The blue space on the walls of my installation is to make people feel like they’re inside of the water. I want to evoke the feeling of crossing a border.”
“The rubber inner tubes, filled with air, symbolise vitality and hope, while the scarification symbols that adorn them refer to cultural identities and historical scars.
“Placed in old wooden crates and arranged on worn doors forming a map, these inner tubes evoke the perilous journeys undertaken by migrants in search of a better life.
“Scarifications, deeply rooted in African traditions, serve as markers of cultural, social or religious identity. They identify a person belonging to a specific ethnic group or region.”
As a citizen of the DRC, these questions of immigration and the internal pressures that often force people to flee their homes in hope of a better life are also personal to him.
According to the UN the DRC has consistently been among the top sources of refugees and internally displaced persons in Africa, with millions of people displaced both within and outside the country due to political instability and armed conflict.
“In coming to South Africa for the triennale, I was thinking a lot about immigration,” says Mwilambwe.
“My work is partly exploring how human beings cannot stay in one place. Mobility is humanity. You can’t force people to stay in one place, like a prison, because they will always want to venture outwards to explore, to discover, to expand. This is why my work is so concerned with these questions of migration and mobility because it’s a contested, but essential, aspect of humanity.”
In reflecting on my own journey, I’ve come to realise the labels expatriate, immigrant and refugee are not just about legal status or geography — they are about the ways we, as individuals, are shaped by the borders drawn by history, politics and power.
Alexandre Kyungu Mwilambwe’s thought-provoking installation, which examines the complexities of migration, echoes my own experiences navigating a world where identity, belonging and movement are entangled in layers of personal and collective histories.
Like Mwilambwe, I too wrestle with the borders that define where I am from, where I belong and where I am going.
This exploration of mobility, of the constant push and pull of place and identity, is not just an academic question but a deeply personal one.
It’s a question that continues to inform my understanding of myself as I carve out my place in a world that is constantly changing.
