Ntando Cele: Wasted Land

photo: Claudia Ndebele

In her work, Ntando Cele has used theatrical tools – through play, humor, music, or simple situations – to expose how racism operates in society today. As a South African artist living and working in a Western context, she has until now resisted making work about the ecological crisis. The conflict between collective and personal responsibility seemed insurmountable to her.

However, Cele couldn’t ignore how few non-Western voices are being heard on this issue in Western Europe. Climate change and ecology are being led by white institutions and figures like Greta Thunberg. Too often, the commitments made are trapped in theoretical debates without tangible solutions.

If the Earth truly belongs to all of its inhabitants, then all people should have a voice in how we contribute, whether consciously or unconsciously, to “Gaia.” Wasted Land gives Cele the opportunity to unpack her own perception of the climate crisis and what it provokes in her, as a colonized body living with the generational consequences of inequality.

If asked for her opinion, Cele would say: what does a future without black and brown people – continually excluded from the discourse on humanity – look like? What if societies recognized and accepted a genuine social transformation, where all forms of injustice were immediately corrected? Along the way, she sarcastically injects a little humor into the despair and extinction rhetoric that often surrounds ecological discourse.

In Wasted Land, Cele explores fast fashion as a manifestation of contemporary colonialism. This fast fashion connects Western consumerism with developing countries, where low-cost production results in a waste mountain of discarded clothing sent back.

Wasted Land is a melodic landscape between theatrical performance, video projection, and a poetic concert. A post-apocalyptic satire inspired by decolonial protest songs, which Cele reinterprets together with Egyptian musician and composer Wael Sami Elkholy and three vocalists.