NGUVA by WANGECHI MUTU (2014)
For her new exhibition Nguva na Nyoka (Sirens and Serpents)at London’s Victoria Miro gallery, Mutu looked to mythologies from Africa and the Arab world, exploring the troubling spirit of mermaids and the abyssal mystery of the sea, where sailors are seduced and annihilated. The accompanying film Nguva, previewed here, opens with an unsettling scream, moving to ghostly images of veiled women on a sandy shore. The artist appears as a hysterical beast whose menacing force slowly dissipates. Through this magical metamorphosis, Mutu creates a surreal landscape between life and death, reality and dreams, the female body transforming into site of geo-political and sexual violence.”
Watch the film in full
Gerald Machona: Vabvakure (People from Far Away) (Zimbabwe)
Artist Statement: “Central to this body of work is my use of various decommissioned currencies as an aesthetic material,” explains Machona, “in an attempt to link historic and contemporary trends of African diasporic migration on the continent. Most recently, the migration of Zimbabwean nationals into neighbouring SADC countries and abroad, following the country’s political and economic collapse. While South Africa hosts the largest population of these Zimbabwean nationals living in the diaspora, in May of 2008 they were amongst the foreign nationals persecuted by the xenophobic attacks. It was reported that people were targeted through a process of profiling that assumed authentic South Africans are lighter in complexion or fluent in an indigenous language; this resulted in 21 of the 62 casualties being local citizens. Such beliefs have complicated who is considered an ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ in South African society. Pitting ‘native’ against ‘alien’ and perpetuating an exclusive sense of belonging that is reminiscent of apartheid doctrine. There is a growing need in the post-colony to deconstruct these notions of individual and collective identity, since ‘nations’, ‘nationalisms’ and ‘citizenry’ are no longer defined solely through indigeneity or autochthony.”
In this Race, Crime & Citizenship Symposium about the role of prisons in the criminal “justice” system, scholar and commentator Kimberle Williams Crenshaw explores the presence of a large race-, and gender-based prison system shaping understandings of citizenship. Series: “Voices” [8/2006] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 11879]
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Fitting of my F.A.T.E larp outfit 2# for Henry-Pierre
LaToya Ruby Frazier, Grandma Ruby’s African Statue Heads from the project The Notion of Family, 2007
"Of whom and of what are we contemporaries? And, first and foremost, what does it mean to be contemporary?" Giorgio Agamben, Qu’est-ce que le contemporain?, Paris, Rivages, 2008. Photo: Icarus 13, Kiluanji Kia Henda
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