[590] Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a Nguni word, usually translated as "I am because we are". It is the idea that a person becomes a person through other people: that who we are is shaped by the people around us, and that our own wellbeing is bound up with theirs.

We live in a time that celebrates the individual. The self-made, the personal brand, the one at the centre of their own story. This work turns that around. The figure in the middle is not there in spite of everyone else. It exists because of them, held in place by ring after ring of other people.

Ubuntu is also an idea about responsibility. If I am because you are, then what happens to you happens to me. In a world that feels increasingly divided, that seems to me less like a nice sentiment and more like a necessity.