Biography
Facilitated by Phumulani Ntuli and Mbali Dhlamini, Preempt Group came together as a collective in 2018 to explore the possibilities of analogue, hybrid and transmedia, as well as performance, film and workshops in examining the intersection between colonial archives and open-source technologies. Their work questions the ‘openness’ of open-source technologies when viewed through the lens of traditional epistemologies. They probe and propose decolonizing strategies and artistic interventions in relation to the African continent.
Preempt Group views collaboration as a means of expanding the collective and realises its research by utilising technological processes, in continuing dialogue with archives authored by others from the African diaspora. Their work is often visualised by methods that incorporate simulation, orality, holography and photogrammetry. Their practice can be understood as an extension of existing discourse around the restitution and repatriation of stolen objects and artefacts, one of the ongoing legacies of colonialism.
The Group’s first project as a collective, Tied Rope (2018), a film produced in collaboration with Dr David Koloane and Patrick Mautloa, won the PPC Imaginarium Award, Evictions (2020). They are the inaugural recipients of the Javette UP Visionary Award, supported by the Tim Heatherington Trust, hosted by the Javette Art Center at the University of Pretoria (2021-2022).
Ntuli holds an MFA from the Ecole Cantonale D’Art du Valais Sierre, Switzerland (2017) and a BFA in Sculpture from the University of Johannesburg (2012). Dhlamini received her MA from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (2015) and her Bachelor of Technology (Visual Arts) degree from the University of Johannesburg (2013).
Ntuli was born in 1986, Johannesburg, where he continues to live and work.
Dhlamini was born in 1990, South Africa. She currently lives and works in Johannesburg.