Pamela Phatsimo SunstrumScene 31, 2024
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum’s ‘It Will End in Tears’ marks a significant evolution in her practice, transforming the Barbican’s Curve Gallery into an immersive, cinematic environment. Developed in collaboration with Remco Osório Lobato, the large-scale installation invites viewers into the imagined world of a twentieth century colonial outpost, loosely inspired by the artist’s grandmother’s hometown in Botswana. Through a sequence of drawings, paintings, and constructed environments, ‘It Will End in Tears’ unfolds like a nonlinear narrative – its interconnected spaces evoking film sets, waiting rooms, and administrative offices. Viewers were drawn into this layered world, piecing together the story of a new alter-ego in Sunstrum’s growing cast of characters, and navigating a blurred line between passive viewing and active participation.
Within this broader installation, ‘Scene 31’ captures a quiet, charged moment between two lovers in the aftermath of intimacy. The figures are rendered with tenderness and ambiguity, suspended in a space that feels both private and performative. Positioned within the world of ‘It Will End in Tears’, the scene deepens the artist’s ongoing exploration of the complexities of identity and the roles we inhabit in both public and private life.
