The backs of two painted African figures, an elder man and a younger boy, can be viewed on the large tapestry-like work of Kenyan artist Kaloki Nyamai in the Kenyan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The father-and-son-like rendering captures the pair in what seems to be a session of quiet contemplation, almost meditative. In some ways that is the experience desired after arriving by foot to Fabrica 33, the site of an old carpenter’s workshop in Calle Larga dei Boteri in the Cannaregio district of Venice where the Kenyan Pavilion is located. It is situated far away from the Arsenale and Giardini—the main attractions of the 59th Venice Biennale The Milk of Dreams curated by Cecilia Alemani. This year marks the fourth time Kenya is participating at the prestigious art world event, in which Africa, a continent that has garnered great attention from the international art world over the last decade, is still very much underrepresented. 

Kenya’s first and second national pavilions at the Venice Biennale pavilion, in 2013 and 2015, caused widespread controversy when they were curated by a team of Italians and showed works by Chinese and Italian artists and only one to two Kenyan artists. The serene feeling one receives while entering into Fabrica 33 is synonymous to the solid representation of the East African nation in Venice after two disastrous showings. When Kenyan Jimmy Ogonga came on board as the curator for the country’s pavilion in 2017 and its showing this year, an exhibition representative of the nation’s art scene was finally had.

This time the East Africa nation is presenting itself in a much sleeker way and with three prominent Kenyan artists—Dickens Otieno, Wanja Kimani and Nyamai—curated by Kenyan Jimmy Ogonga. It is titled Exercises in Conversation and explores the dynamics between participants in a conversation and how such a complex relationship can affect history It was commissioned by Dr. Kiprop Lagat, Kenya’s Minister of Sport, Culture and Heritage. The works, placed around the subtle setting of the Fabrica 33, are hung on the wall like Otieno’s seemingly sparking rendition of the pandemic hazmat suit made from African textile or hung across the room like Kyambi’s textile work that also refers to her Namibian heritage. 

Despite the international art world’s fixation on African contemporary art over the past decade, African representation at the Venice Biennale has been greatly lacking, due predominantly to the dearth of funding and resources, and oftentimes also from a lack of interest from respective governments. In 2007 there was only one African pavilion, and now, this year there are nine. Gradually, there has been increased visibility in recent years, particularly in 2015 when the late Nigerian curator, art critic and educator Okwui Enwezor (1963-2019) was curator. Countries that have previously participated, such as Angola, which won the Golden Lion for best national participation in 2013 for its pavilion Luanda, Encyclopedic City, Madagascar, Mozambique and Seychelles, are not present this year. 

This year nine nations out of the 55 member States that represent all countries on the African continent showed at the Biennale—out of 80 national participants that are present at the historic Pavilions at the Giardini, in the Arsenale and throughout the city of Venice. The African nations present include Egypt, Namibia, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Ivory Coast. Out of these three participated for the first time: Namibia, Cameroon and Uganda, with the latter being awarded a “Special Mention” by the jury of the Venice Biennale. 

“The Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte di Venezia is a stage offering an opportunity for a multiplicity of artistic narratives to be presented and heard,” said Neri Torcello, founder and director of the African Art in Venice Forum (AAVF), which staged its third edition during the opening preview this year. “As the Biennale is perceived by its audience as a global platform, accessibility and representation become even more vital to promote an inclusive creative dialogue in a just society. AAVF, with its discursive, and content partnerships based format is an agile platform to allow this to happen, exactly when  the hearts of those sensitive to artistic expression are tuned in to the frequencies of the Venice Biennale.”

This year, in Cecilia Alemani’s The Milk of Dreams, the Biennale’s central exhibition occupying the Arsenale and the Giardini di Castello, 12 artists were chosen from the African continent out of the 213 artists from 58 countries that Alemani selected. These included South African Igshaan Adams, Sudanese-Danish Monira Al Qadiri, Ibrahim El-Salahi from Sudan, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami from Zimbabwe, South African Bronwyn Katz, Antoinette Lubaki from the Democratic Republic Congo, French-Egyptian Amy Nimr, Kenyan Magdalene Odundo, Ethiopian Elias Sime and Portia Zvavahera from Zimbabwe.

Standout pavilions this year included Ivory Coast, participating for the second time since its debut in 2013. It showed Dreams of a Story, a presentation of ethereal works oscillating between a surrealistic dream world and everyday life in the West African nation, with the participation of artists such as Aboudia, Armand Boua, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Aron Demetz, Laetitia Ky and Yeanzi. Curated by Italians Massimo Scaringella and Alessandro Romanini with support from the Ministry of Culture and Arts and Entertainment Industry of Ivory Coast and the Italian Embassy of Ivory Coast, the heightened abstract mixed media canvases of Boua, with their inclusion of newspaper clippings, hang next to the abstract lightboxes of Yeanzi replete with depictions of various local icons and symbols as well as captivating profiles of unknown figures. Pulsating with movement, color, brushstrokes and lines are the abstract expressionist canvases of Aboudia , one of the nation’s most recognizable stars. His canvases document the street scenes of his hometown of Abidjan with graffiti-like renderings of daily life, people and children, and include his recurring skull, bullet and soldier motifs that point to violence and trauma—a nod to post-election conflict that took place in the capital in 2011. The works are assertive, strong and vulnerable in ways that speak to an Africa in crisis and to the fraying of the continent’s social fabric in its post-colonial years. 

Zimbabwe, by contrast, is participating for the sixth time at the Biennale. Yet its pavilion, titled i did not leave a sign?,  and featuring four artists— Kresiah Mukwazhi, Wallen Mapondera, Terrence Musekiwa and Ronald Muchatuta—features a loosely held together show that is disappointing in formal content and themes. Curated by Fadzai Veronica Muchemwa and commissioned by Raphael Chikukwa, Mukwazhi’s expansive abstract expressionist work with its vibrant hues and animated series of figures  prompts the spectator to stay for a while and ponder the rhythmic movement and figures depicted. It is the star of the show.  In other rooms, mixed media installation works, some including figurines made of pink, cream and white bras holding Kalashnikovs or large phantom like figures in another room made of dozens of old black wires, give off an unsettling and  incomplete feel. The goal of Muchemwa is to explore tales of dispersion and migration,  knowledge, science and technology, as ways to rebel against the uncertainties of organized religion.

A gem at the biennale this year was Uganda’s pavilion, making its debut in Venice, and for which it received a “Special Mention” for national participation from the Biennale’s jury. Titled Radiance – They Dream in Time, the exhibition was curated by The Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development, which officially supported the pavilion.  Juliana Naumo Kuruhiira served as the pavilion’s commissioner, with Tanzanian-born British taking up the role curator, Shaheen Merali, and features works by Kampala-based artists Acaye Kerunen and Collin Sekajugo. Tradition and contemporary culture are elegantly paired in dialogue through the two artists’ work. Sekajugo’s paintings  portray poignant subjects in rich hues in everyday and public settings, whereas Kerunen’s work resurrects local Ugandan craftsmanship and heritage in her contemporary installations made of natural and reusable materials such as swamp grown fibers and polyethene bags. Their work, when paired side by side, introduces the diversity in heritage and contemporary culture in present-day Uganda.

“Uganda has barely been represented on the international art stage,” said Sekajugo. “A country whose people I personally consider resilient and persevering, has seen so many ups and downs during its artistic revolution. From the country’s turbulent past to present day sociopolitical struggles, creative production has taken different shapes where platforms for self-expression have often been limited to a few brave practitioners. I strongly believe that this showcase will only open more doors for our creativities.” 

While Namibia’s first-ever pavilion was embroiled in scandal a week before the Biennale opened, with its main sponsor, luxury travel operator Abercrombie and Kent, and its patron Monica Cembrola pulling out because of  what they viewed as a misrepresentation of the Namibian art scene (the pavilion features the work of one artist who is making his debut in Venice and goes by the pseudonym RENN), the Egyptian pavilion, which focuses on digital art and features work by Mohamed Shoukry, Weaam El Masry, and Ahmed El Shaer, curiously remained closed during the first few days of public viewing due to technical difficulties. 

For Cameroon’s first-ever pavilion, which took place in two locations, within the loggia of the Liceo Artistico Statale Michelangelo in the Guggenheim Museum in the Dorsoduro district of Venice and at the Palazzo Ca’ Bernardo. The former presents IRL (“in real life”) art by four Cameroonian (Francis Nathan Abiamba, Angéle Etoundi Essamba, Justine Gaga, and Salifou Lindou) paired with four international artists (Shay Frisch, Umberto Mariani, Matteo Mezzadri, Jorge R. Pombo). The works, done in a variety of media, including photography, installation, painting and sound, offer an eerie portrayal of the west-central African nation. While the works of Douala-based Salifou Lindou standout for their technical precision, color and movement, in the center of the loggia is Transfiguration (2022) by Justine Gaga, a Cameroonian sculptor and video artist. Her haunting installation consists of a group of metal rods akin to totem poles with circular metal objects as heads and long patterned scarves hanging from the top. On the metal rods are written words in French such as liberalism, violence, capitalism and fiction. 

It is the pavilion’s second location at the Palazzo Ca’ Bernardo that is perplexing. It presents an NFT show, arguably the first at the Venice Biennale, organized by Global Crypto Art DAO, a new collective that raises money to support artists making the transition into the world of crypto. Featured are works by artists from over 20 countries, notably Germany, China, and the US, but not Cameroon. 

Stationed prominently within the Arsenale, one of the biennale’s most coveted venues, is the Ghana Pavilion. Its exhibition Black Star – The Museum as Freedom follows the West African nation’s acclaimed debut in 2019 and features the work of Ghanaian artists Na Chainkua Reindorf and Afroscope and Brazilian Diego Araúja who is interested in the connections between Ghana and his homeland. It has the same curator as the 2019 pavilion, Nana Oforiatta Ayim, who is also the director of ANO Institute of Arts and Knowledge in Accra and director-at-large of Ghana’s Museums and Cultural Heritage.

While underwhelming compared to the size, vision and quality of works shown at Ghana’s first presentation in Venice, what is notable is the theme and the diversity of mediums used—from works on canvas to technology and installation. The works on display support the idea of the Black Star that symbolizes Ghana through its flag and most important monument, the Black Star Gate, part of Accra’s Independence Square now known as the Black Star Square, which is topped with the Black Star of Africa—a five-pointed star that represents the continent with a particular nod to Ghana, which in 1957 was the first Sub-Saharan country to break free from colonial year when it declared independence from Great Britain. The Black Star, as the exhibition further emphasizes, also connects Africa with its diasporas through Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line and his resulting Back-to-Africa movement. The Black Star now goes beyond Ghana: it is symbolic of all people of African descent wishing to make their way home to the continent. 

“Last year we showed the superstars of the Ghanaian art scene and this time I really wanted to look at the future-builders,” said Oforiatta Ayim. “These artists for me are ones that are creating new models through language, narratives and technology. Last time we looked at the legacies of the past on the present and this one is much more looking at how we create new futures.”

While Africa might not yet have an adequate representation of the richness of its evolving art scenes through a more prominent showing of national pavilions at the Venice Biennale, an increase in the showing of artists from the continent and its diasporas at the world’s most prominent art event tell of a new chapter on the horizon for art from the continent on the international stage. Still, much work needs to done.

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“Perhaps, I should get out of myself, get beyond the frontier of my very being, to study man now – man confused and confident….to free myself from all that oppress me. I will go to Kpaaza.” 

MUNICH, 1970 – 2022,  Uche Okeke

The art of Uche Okeke ( 1933-2016) emerged at a critical moment in Nigeria’s history: the cusp of British colonialism and the advent of political independence in 1960. Uche Okeke was one of a significant group of artists who recognised the moment and sought to devise a new modality for modernist art, introducing the beginnings of Africa’s postcolonial landscape and rejecting the colonial orthodoxy that had dictated Uche Okeke’s training at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Zaria (now Ahmadu Bello University), an important centre of emerging art. Okeke invented a modernist vocabulary that drew on the aesthetic traditions and worldview of the Igbo, his ethnic group, and combined them with his formal exposure to artistic sensibilities from elsewhere in what he called “natural synthesis”. He was guided by the resurgent African spirit which, at the time, found a foothold in the ideologies of Pan-Africanism aimed at reinventing the body politic, reclaiming agency and ultimately restoring the dignity of the African person after decades of colonial subjugation. Okeke’s philosophy of natural synthesis called for the creation of locally relevant art, while serving the larger goal of advancing black and African perspectives of modernity in a global context. ¹

Six years after the passing of Uche Okeke, master modernist artist, visionary, scholar and change agent, the relevance of his vision and legacy continues to manifest in contemporary and modern African art and African artists’ practice on the global stage. This exhibition contributes to global discourse and, most importantly, it highlights the importance of Uche Okeke’s legacy as an artist, writer/poet, folklorist, educator, and cultural activist. 

The exhibition presents a body of Uche Okeke’s work focusing on works on paper, including drawings and paintings, posters created by Uche Okeke to support the Biafran War efforts, and maps of the Biafra territory that have not been on display for many years. 

The works featured in the exhibition are selected from Uche Okeke’s private collection, now known as the Asele Institute Art Collection. They include works by Nigerian modernists such as Demas Nwoko, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Okechukwu Odita, Oseloka Osadebe, as well as protégé’s of Okeke including  Ego Uche-Okeke, Uzo Ndubisi, and Emmanuel Tetteh, who he met during his trips to Ghana in the 1970s. 

The works are in conversation with artworks from Iwalewahaus , such as works by Obiora Udechukwu and other artists from the Nsukka School. Furthermore, the exhibition makes accessible materials from the Asele Institute archives, including exhibition posters, brochures and particular items from Uche Okeke’s trips to Germany between 1962 and 1963.

A key element of We will now go to Kpaaza is a series of immersive installations by contemporary Nigerian artist Jeremiah Ikongio. These include 3D modeling, animation and sound installations based on Uche Okeke’s drawings and sculptures and can also be experienced through augmented reality (AR).  

Kpaaza, a term used by Uche Okeke is a metaphor for spiritual, intellectual and creative journeys in search of self. Kpaaza frequently resurfaces in the artist’s writing when he is referencing journeys he made to his ancestral home and to foreign lands, but also to places of questioning and acquiring knowledge. It symbolises critical internal and external journeys that are reflective of traditional ways of creating and making art in modern times. 

The exhibition takes the line as a guiding curatorial principle. It draws from Uli’s dynamism; the line is perceived as a dot that goes for a walk, the ecology of the communal Uli painting, in which the lines meander, slipping in and out. Uli is a linear mark-making practiced by Igbo women in traditional settings, adorning the body for beauty or the walls as murals. Okeke’s mother drew uli designs when he was growing up. 

We will now go to Kpaaza acknowledges mobility as an important resource – of bodies, of ideas, information and of influence – the exhibition highlights key conjunctions in Uche Okeke’s artistic practice that was catalysed by the travels made over the durations of his professional career. The “German experience”, as highlighted in his book “Art in Development – A Nigerian Perspective”, became crucial in structuring the already established Asele Institute. Okeke spent two years in the then West Germany, training in the art of stained glass and mosaic under Karl Mayer at the Mayer’sche Hofkunstanstalt in Munich. He made contacts and built personal and professional relationships that allowed for exchanges with numerous cultural institutions as well as other sectors.  

For more information on the exhibition and related programming please email Katharina Fink – frl.Fink@uni-bayreuth.de or Lena Naumann – lena.naumann@uni-bayreuth.de

Featured artists: 

Uche Okeke, Ego Uche-Okeke, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Demas Nwoko, Okechukwu Odita, Oseloka Osadebe, Uzochukwu Ndubisi, Emmanuel Tetteh, Kinode, C.O. Ibe, Kuniyasu, J.O. Akujobi, Anozie, F.N. Ekeada, Martin O.C. Onwuzuruoha, Ibrahim El Salahi, Mathias Kauage

Digital intervention by Jeremiah Ikongio in conversation with Uche  Okeke’s text-based and sculptural artworks

Uche Okeke

We will now go to Kpaaza

Curated by Ijeoma Loren Uche-Okeke (Nigeria/South Africa) and Nantume Violet (Uganda/Germany). 

April 29 – October 15, 2022 

At Iwalewahaus, Wölfelstraße 2, 95444 Bayreuth, Germany

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Presented by The Studio Museum in Harlem “Thomas J Price: Witness” marks the British sculptor’s first US solo institutional presentation. Price’s nine-foot bronze figure, The Distance Within (2021), is sited within Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park and depicts a young Black man looking down at his cell phone. The form of the piece pays homage to a work titled Network that the artist originally presented in the UK in 2013. Price’s large-scale figural sculptures are inspired by real people, often those who live and work in his hometown of South London, where the artist was born and raised, and resides today.  

Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, says, “We are thrilled to continue the Studio Museum’s history of introducing the public to artists of African descent and advancing their work by being the first US institution to mount a solo presentation of the sculpture of the remarkable Thomas J Price. In The Distance Within, he celebrates ordinary blackness, rendering it extraordinary, and asks us to deeply consider the very function of monuments as defining the familiar. We feel certain that our public in Harlem, and throughout the city and the world, will find this installation thought-provoking, moving, and extremely powerful.”

Price’s relationship to Harlem comes via his lived experience as a Black man looking “across the pond” from his neighborhood of Brixton to where he describes as his home’s “counterpoint.” Both historically Black neighborhoods with rich social and cultural legacies, the respective landscapes of Harlem and Brixton remain in dialogue. Thus, for Price, Harlem holds a special significance as a place the artist considers a home away from home.  

With Witness, the artist continues his exploration of blackness and Black masculinity at monumental scales. In The Distance Within, Price asks us to consider what is projected onto Black bodies as they move in the world and in what ways they are made monolithic via broader archetypes and stereotypes, as well as how Black bodies in the ordinary everyday are subject to extraordinary surveillance and spectatorship. 

The grand size of the sculpture celebrates a familiar everyday form rarely monumentalized within a public setting. Simultaneously, the scale works to take up space, to occupy, to hold presence, to bear witness. In the artist’s words, “I want to interrogate [notions of] presence, movement, and freedom. Who do these spaces belong to? And what bodies are provided more or less autonomy to move with liberty through public [space]?” 

Thomas J Price: Witness

Oct 02, 2021 – Oct 01, 2022

Marcus Garvey Park

Harlem, New-York (USA)

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Fondation H presents Shiraz Bayjoo’s first institutional exhibition in France, Lo Sa La Ter Ruz [On This Red Earth], curated by Ilaria Conti.
Expanding on the artist’s research into the colonial histories linking his native Mauritius to surrounding territories such as Madagascar, the exhibition presents a new series of works created specifically for the exhibition and highlighting the complex socio-political entanglements that have shaped the Indian Ocean. Presented on both levels of the Fondation H – Paris, Lo Sa La Ter Ruz is a critical reflection and homage to the resilient genealogies that have structured communities and transmitted knowledge through generations of colonised people, despite the crimes against humanity and nature they have faced.

Drawing on Bayjoo’s extensive research in French archives, the works in the exhibition propose new conceptual and material strategies of knowledge production, challenging the principle of extraction at work in colonial archives. I had the chance to talk with Shiraz Bayjoo and Ilaria Conti about some of the many aspects of the exhibition. I wanted to comprehend the challenges of Shiraz’s artistic practice and how they worked together with Ilaria Conti to put this exhibition together.

What does the use of colonial archives represent in today’s reflections on decolonial practices and more specifically in your work Shiraz Bayjoo ? 

Ilaria Conti (I.C): Colonial archives are a very intricate subject of study and debate; they are sets of information shaped by truly complex histories. We must also understand how such information informs us: our knowledge, present-day processes, and ways of thinking. Much work has been done on the use and detournement of colonial archives, and it is important to continue to develop work that fosters awareness on the genealogies of these materials and the structures of power that these documents reproduce in the present. 

We have long discussed with Shiraz the impossibility of having a one-dimension approach to archival materials, because they are in constant flux as much as we are in flux. Our ability to read and address them changes over time. We must therefore develop new thinking tools and a different vocabulary, as the relevance of these archives is given by those who look at them today, it is not just about the histories that someone collected in the past. 

It’s crucial to think about how the activation of such archives through the histories they perpetuate in the present and their implications for the future. Addressing colonial archives is also brave, as these represent a slippery territory: they are ever shifting, and so are we in relation to them. This courageous line of critical thinking is central to Shiraz’s practice. 

Shiraz Bayjoo (S.B): Colonial archives present multiple possibilities in unpacking the construction of post-colony national narratives, and ultimately the space in which we arrive at today. They become an important tool if we want to expand our understanding of our recent historical past. This work is about how histories have been recorded and how and where aspects of our identities and cultures have been collected, how they have been collected and how they are represented in the language of museums and museology. It is a complex journey in the re-representation of these materials, one that requires questioning and criticality in all directions around the subject, and throughout the process. It can become an act of reclaiming, making visible, and in this way pushing back against erasure. How ever we have to tread carefully, avoiding recreating the violence of the past, or the framing of language that has been used to obscure and ultimately reduce identities, cultures, and people. 

Can revisiting colonial archives today be considered in itself a form of violence? 

S.B: It is important that we don’t enter into the replication of violence or its visual repetition, but we also don’t want to deny what has taken place. It is important not to thin our understanding of the depths of subjugation, and how people were forced to exist in a very specific way at odds with their traditional ways of life. Looking at the framework of language can be a useful way, without having to point directly to situations of violence. I think it is important to represent the depth of trauma, but with pathways that seek to serve the healing process.

I.C: It is a continuous and very delicate process of figuring out how to relate to these materials. In focusing on what is considered violent in such archives, we must learn how to engage with it and understand how to not reproduce such violence. It is not just a matter of acknowledging what has happened historically, but also to understand what was considered worthy of being part of such archives, and—as Shiraz has mentioned—who has access to them now and why. The revisitation of the archives is not a form of violence per se, but it certainly requires us to learn how to navigate multiple levels of violence. As we work through these materials, we also discover new, more subtle forms of violence that pertain to the present-day discourse and to our positionality as those who engage with such materials in the now. 

Shiraz, why is it important for you not to restrict your research to the Mauritian case but to extend it to the whole Indian Ocean region? More precisely to the Great Red Earth? Is there a link here with the archipelago thinking of Edouard Glissant; act in your place and think with the world?

S.B: The research for this exhibition comes from a previous exhibition and body of work entitled Searching for Libertalia. It is a work that explores the process of African decolonization, specifically the process towards independence. Mauritius is central to much of my work not for patrimonial nostalgia, but because island post-colonies make visible the layers of the colonial project, of the hierarchies of race and people. 

Mauritius is a colonial construct. For me it is important to situate it in relation to  the wider region. Madagascar in contrast is claimed as a site of indigeneity, it is not a colonial construction, and can therefore reveal deeper layers. These are not historical projects, instead we explore our contemporary presence, unpacking  language, and the framing of identity through Eurocentric visions. We have to be able to see beyond one space and understand particularly in the archipelago the interconnectedness of people and places.

Ilaria, in the paragraph 4 of the curatorial text it is said « Territory requires that filiation be planted and legitimated. Territory is defined by its limits, and they must be expanded. A land henceforth has no limits. » Can you please elaborate on what you mean by that? What do you think is the difference between land and territory ? 

I.C: This quote by Edouard Glissant is one tool among the many he has developed to address the complexity of colonial histories. When considering Shiraz’s work and in thinking about the curatorial path of Lo Sa La Ter Ruz, land represents a central point. With Shiraz we had in-depth conversations about the possibilities of representation when working with archives, and we realized the strong focus that there is on the human figure. It was key for us to move beyond this exclusive focus and consider the intimate relations that historically have been established with the land. The aim is to place the human and the non-human on the same level and explore the deep interconnection that exists among these two dimensions. This is also why in the curatorial text we address genocide and ecocide as one deeply entwined element. 

The works in the exhibition point toward the importance of thinking about the land as a place of knowledge and of its transmission—as well as of safety and refuge, as in the maroon forest featured in the textile work titled Riverstone. There is a crucial shift that takes place when thinking about land as a space of self-determination, culture, knowledge, resilience, and survival, as opposed to land as a site of extraction and exploitation.

The words by Glissant exemplify such shift, which leads to understand land as an entity with its own standing in society. I have therefore included this quote in the curatorial text as it insightfully mirrors Shiraz’s thinking and ongoing process. In this sense, the overall ecology of the exhibition can be seen as an ecosystem of interrelated elements that does not form a monolithic statement: it is a process that is not over yet, a point on a potentially endless arc of research. 

Precisely, in the Coral Island series, Shiraz, you reveal scenes that would be almost laughable if the matter wasn’t so dramatic: settlers having fun with the local fauna and taking possession of it, just as they did with the human populations of these islands. One can see the Dodo, an endemic animal of Mauritius, now extinct, as well as the giant turtle, also exterminated from the island but reintroduced thanks to the neighbouring species from the Seychelles archipelago: the Aldabra turtle. 

S.B: Our relationship to ownership of land and the idea of extraction has a firm connection,  exploitation of people through forced labour grew exponentially with the exploitation of natural resources across the globe throughout the colonial period. In the case of the Mascarene Islands, although there are no indigenous people, the ecology is of course indigenous. It is the fauna and flora that have witnessed the erasure more than anything else. Both become a metaphor in terms of reflection. It is a way to understand the violence, the backdrop against which all is unravelled. The plantation landscape, and the idea we are continuing the economics of the plantation, the Plantationoscene as a theoretical space opposing the position of the Anthropocene. It is upon this premise that we are still living in the legacy of this relationship of extraction, forced habitation, forced labour, forced productivity of human, animal, and plant. In fact, it is not just the colonial paradigm, but the genesis of the globalised relationship in which we live today. 

The work ‘San Visyon’ I quote the curatorial text “form a ‘material index of resistance'”. We also see in the series of paintings ‘En Cours’ drawn from the archives of the Musée du Quai Branly from which you creates new images that offer, and I quote, “an alternative and provocative archaeology. He brings to light the sovereignty of representation that the colonial archives have historically erased by their “order of perception”. I wonder about the links between the creation of a new imaginary and resistance in your work. Can you tell me more about this? 

S.B: One of the very strong narratives that we have in Mauritius is the story of the maroon, of maronnage and the act of escape. How do you survive in situations of extreme subjugation? How does that inherited legacy prevent you from moving forward or being able to create a new sense of yourself? Perhaps the act of escape as recounted in the book ‘The old man and the Mastiff’ by the Martinician writer Patrick Chamoiseau provides a pathway; the language of resistance, of the survivor. Can we learn from indigenous communities, understand better the custodianship of knowledge, of stories? What are our stories of heroism, of survivors? We know for sure the great grandmothers who survived the plantation, so we exist today to reflect on their stories. Their survival strategies are a common thread between people throughout the history of slavery. Perhaps within this is the language to continue this process of decolonisation. 

Shiraz, in reference to the ‘Sambo Sculptural Series’, can you tell me how does spirituality operate – has operated – as a means of resistance through everyday objects?

S.B: The Sambo Sculptures are offerings, intimate objects that would probably have little value in other spaces. However, in this context, they represent hopes, prayers, wishes and perhaps even spells. This series of works reflects upon the limits of our agency; objects and talismans become important tools in projecting yourself where none is possible. I think we have that in us as human beings. These objects and practices emerge from highly oppressive environments. We cannot underestimate the psychological power imbued upon these objects. This is why I come back to these spaces, offerings, that continue to exist today in Madagascar, Mauritius and around the world. These are survival strategies in secrecy and subtlety. 

The exhibition ‘Lo Sa La Ter Ruz’ [On This Red Land] because it is, and I quote the curatorial text, “conceived as a polyphony of artworks that resonate with one another to convey and honor the complex experience of the colonized,” seems to highlight both the singularities and multiplicities of Mauritians and Malagasies with respect to the common colonial history. This is particularly evident in the work ‘Politique des Races (4)’, 2021. The elements remain distinct without denaturing each other while producing a new connected synthesis in motion and not fixed? This seems to echo the glissantian thought on creolization. The question is: Change without denaturing?

I.C: In this series Shiraz addresses the artifice that placing the human above everything else enforces. He decides to think visually otherwise, working with diverse small elements and creating new adjacencies among them so as to form new meaning. 

This strategy can be seen as relating to notions of opacity, as the works seem to question whether it is possible to focus on a single, crystallized image that define nature in a singular, definitive way. In such process, an essential component is his process of “thinking through making”: the artist includes so many layers in his paintings that the potential meanings, atmospheres, and connections are always in flux; they form somehow a type of archipelagic thinking. 

Politique des Races (4) moves away from the idea of “nature” as a single identity and from the essentialism that standardized images of nature carry within themselves. The series liberates the potential for such imagery to re-exist in the present, shaping new meaning that are radical and critical in their ambiguous and transient nature.

Lo Sa la Ter Ruz [On This Red Earth] – Shiraz Bayjoo

Curated by Ilaria Conti

Fondation H – Paris

16 September 2021 to 20 November 2021

24 rue Geoffroy l’Asnier
75004 Paris, France

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Very little has been written about the artist Hussein Salim. It is surprising given he has been exhibiting frequently in South Africa, his artworks sell out at art fairs and in London-based auctions and they present a unique abstract aesthetic. The fifty-something Sudanese artist attributes the paucity of texts about him to his terrible grasp on English. He has shied away from interviews. In truth, the unique turn of phrases he utters and his economy of language in relaying the essence of his life-journey – there are no spare words for idle chatter – add to his charm and make his story more compelling. In some ways it is a familiar story. Far too many African artists have had to leave their native countries to become and remain artists. However, the way in which Hussein Salim has found success and acceptance in a country with a reputation for xenophobia – largely targeted at African nationals – is refreshing. Uplifting even.

His largest solo exhibition in South Africa, The Garden of Cardinal Delights, which opened at the Melrose gallery in Joburg last week, presents a landmark of sorts. It is the culmination of a series of fortuitus twists and turns since he left his hometown in Sudan in the late nineties.

On paper Salim was not in any way destined to be an artist. Born into a poor family of 13 children there was pressure to pursue a stable income and career.

“It was a day of big conflict in my home,” recalls Salim of the occasion he revealed his ambitions to be an artist to his father.

“You are kidding,” was his father’s response.

Convincing his father that he had a talent worth pursuing was just one of the barriers. There was also the fact that the rural village of Karim, where he grew-up was an actual desert and a cultural one too. There was no access to books, images or art. The internet had not arrived either. It seems almost impossible that someone would grow up aspiring to be an artist in such a context, but, conversely it seems to have shaped Salim’s proclivity for images.

“I grew up surrounded by emptiness. Total emptiness. I never saw an apple until I was seven years old. I knew they existed but didn’t know what it might look like, is it square does it have stripes? That kind of emptiness and poorness allows us to imagine things because we don’t have it in front of our eyes,” says Salim.

Not only did this absence of visual references feed his imagination and desire to draw but it also set him on a path of abstraction which has marked his art ever since.  

There are a vast range of works on The Garden of Cardinal Delights, in different palettes and marked by varying abstract patterns. In Ducklings, all manner of motifs recalling letters of the alphabet, animals, fish and wheels,  swirl around a leaning figure and two orbs. This should make for chaotic scene yet all the objects somehow are suspended in a balanced composition. A work titled Francis is delivered through a much more muted palette, pinks, pale blues, which suits the layer upon layer of details, patterns, upon patterns. This large body of works are all more or less united by Salim’s distinctive language, which remains abstract, though the shadows of human figures keep them somehow grounded in a hazy landscape. He has never painted a traditional landscape.

“I never saw a tree or river until I was much older. That is why I started with abstraction.”

Hussein Salim

His proclivity for abstraction proved somewhat of a challenge for the lecturers at the University of Sudan in Khartoum, where he studied fine art.

“In a traditional education you begin with figurative works and then you can start to make abstract works.” The other battle Salim had on his hands was a financial one. To remain in art school and buy materials he had to sell his art straight-away. He discovered pretty quickly that the Sudanese do not value art.

“To be an artist in Sudan is a sin – is a social sin, a mistake. I mean it. We had a fundamental Islamic regime holding the power and marry that with a bad economic situation. We had a good school of arts but it is being demolished day by day. That place is seen as the devil’s place in the fundamentalist regime mindset,” he observes.

It was in the staff of foreign embassies that Salim found what he describes as “an army of good people supporting my journey.” It was through one of these clients that led a German art dealer to Salim’s home in search of his art. The result of this connection was a touring exhibition in Germany in the late 1990s.

He never returned to Sudan, save for brief visits. This wasn’t only due to more promising opportunities elsewhere but a deep and painful recognition that his art would never be appreciated in his homeland. This message was driven home in the year of his graduation, when he held a small exhibition at the Hilton hotel in Khartoum. Much to his surprise the current prime minister of Sudan was holding talks with foreign businessmen in the hotel. Thinking this might be an opportunity to secure a patron from the highest echelons he connived a meeting with the leader in the corridor where his art was hanging.

“He looked at the price tag and he asked me why it was so expensive. I was shocked. The Turkish guy standing behind him, bought that work. I realised then that people out of my country appreciate my art.”

Hussein Salim

This painful realisation saw Salim embrace a peripatetic existence, largely moving around Europe – Germany, the United Kingdom, Belguim and Norway – exhibiting and selling his art. He wanted however to settle in an English speaking country with warm weather. Australia was first on his list but a long wait in Cairo to secure a meeting for a visa made him consider South Africa. He knew he had made the right choice when the woman at the visa office waivered the fees and warmly welcomed him to the country.

He has been settled in Pietermaritzburg with his family since 2004. It has taken time for his art to circulate and gain attention but he has been carried by committed collectors in this country since his arrival. 

“South Africans have a unique taste in art. This might be due to its complex history. They know how to collect art and when you put something new in front of them they recognize it immediately. In one year I did better here than 10 years in Europe,” he says.

The most profound influence on his work came from an encounter at a Jewish primary school he visited in Germany. He was struck by the children’s acute awareness to survive and be accepted in the world.

“This is the journey of the artist. The Jewish child feels that he is standing against the wind, that produces abstract art and is born from his situation in Germany,” says Salim.

Being an artist is intrinsically going to be tied to a narrative of survival and “finding your place in the world,” says Salim. Interestingly, Salim has found his place in the world via an aesthetic defined by the multitude of cultures he has encountered through his wanderings in Europe. This has been married through a vibrant palette and filtered through layers of patterns, shapes and motifs that are drawn from different cultures. Perhaps it is South Africans desire for a multicultural utopia that allows his art to resonate here. Or perhaps it is his ability to imagine a world beyond what the naked eye can see. – African Art Features Agency funded by the National Arts Council in South Africa.

The Garden of Cardinal Delights will show at the Melrose Gallery until the end of May

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Self-taught artist’s multimedia series uses balloons to convey quest for joy and freedom in the midst of struggle, writes Sandiso Ngubane

In Paris is Burning, the 1990 film chronicling the New York City ball culture, one of its subjects speaks on being black and gay in America. ”I remember my dad telling me you have three strikes against you in this world,” he says. “Every black man has two – being black and being a man. You are black, you’re a man and you’re gay. If you’re going to do this, you’re going to have to be stronger than you have ever imagined.”

It’s no different for queer black men everywhere. Escaping the reality of what you’re up against in the world – specifically racism and homophobia – sometimes means conducting yourself in a way that makes you more ‘palatable’, as artist K.Skits puts it.

The 20-year-old from Alexandra township, north of Johannesburg, recently debuted a body of work titled The Three Balloons under the auspices of Bubblegum Club’s Bubblegum Invites incubator. The initiative was established by the youth culture journal to support emerging artists by providing them with studio space and the resources necessary to bring their work to life. 

Born Kgotlelelo Bradley Sekiti, K.Skit’s series explores the “the generational and ongoing traumas of Black bodies; the everyday experiences of queer Black bodies and (the) Black body’s ability to embrace the gift of life through celebration”.

“My experience as a black and queer person; there’s a lot of trauma but somehow, even with that trauma we are able to find reasons to celebrate. That’s what the balloons are about,” he explains. “It’s a symbol of celebration. Black people are incredible artists. This is how we find joy and healing. We share that with the world but beyond that, this work is about reclaiming my identity.”

The artist adds that too often black artists are forced into a space where they have to ‘perform blackness’ for the white gaze.

“What we do has to be palatable. You have to think about how to be black and acceptable at the same time because we exist in a world that doesn’t like us. For me, this is about being unapologetically black without having to put on a performance of what that is for someone else.”

In the accompanying images, some shot on green screen rendered as a red background, K.Skits wears balloons covering his face. In others he wears an afro as a representation of blackness. “There are images where I’m wearing all-white; looking clean. That’s about the palatability we’re forced into but this also interacts with my queer experience so I’m half naked. Often, as queer black men we are seen as meat. If we’re not being sexualised, we are kept around for clout or we constantly have to educate. In one way or another, we’re being taken from or our culture is being appropriated and exploited. The beans (in the one painting) symbolise the fact that some see blackness as a product you can get off the shelf. You choose how to consume that product whichever way you like.” 

The Three Balloons comes at a time when the news cycle is filled with reports of hate crimes perpetrated against black gay men all over South Africa. Sphamandla Khoza, a 24 year old, was stabbed to death in Ntuzumu near Durban, and his body was found in a ditch near his home; in the Eastern Cape, Andile “Lulu” Nthulela, 40, disappeared for a week before his body was found buried at the home of a suspect; in Gauteng, Nathaniel Spokane’s body was found lifeless, with stab wounds in the chest.

Reports say these are just three of many such cases, with at least one being reported every month for the last year. It’s clear that in spite of the country’s celebrated recognition of queer rights as espoused in the Constitution, the reality on the ground for most queer black men remains bleak at best. It’s difficult to look at K.Skit’s work outside of this context.

In ‘Mmele’ one of the videos from the series, K.Skits can be seen vogueing – a type of dance that is synonymous with New York City’s ball culture as seen in Paris is Burning. ‘Mmele’ means body in the artist’s native Sepedi language and the vogueing, drawn straight out of Paris is Burning, is characterised by hand gestures and body movements the artist sees as an apt depiction of liberation and the conjuring of alternative universes where his emancipation is not tethered to any particular gaze outside of his own.

The queer ball scene informing K.Skit’s ideas around liberation has become popular around the world as an outlet for queer youth in their quest for ‘safe spaces’ within which to express their queerness outside of the hetero-patriarchal norms of modern society. They often dress in drag and participate in dance-offs for a predominantly queer audience as a way of escaping the norms that often render their identity and expressions undesirable – or unpalatable. 

As the artist notes, the rejection of queerness within black communities and society at large, not only makes it difficult for many to exist without fear, it strips one of identity and often leaves queer youths to find alternative communities and ways of celebrating who they are.

“Traditional dancing is not my experience and a lot of black sub-cultures are not relevant to my experience,” the artist says of their decision to use vogueing as an expression of that identity rather than, say, a traditional African dance or minno was setšo (indigenous African music). “When I was in high school, I discovered Paris is Burning and I binged it for a week because I identified with that desire for free expression. I took from it how free people in the film were when they were on the ballroom floor but I also just like viewing the world as a stage. You can create an alternative universe of your own through art and performance.”

A self-taught artist, K.Skits has been dancing as early as eight years old. After a few years of doing sports in school, he eventually joined the drummies – or drum majorettes – and continued to dance through high school. After matriculating and finding an internship doing social media at Wits University, K.Skit’s became interested in photography and began to experiment with self-portraiture and making short dance videos on his smartphone.

The Three Balloons marks a continued expansion of this expression. He adds of his interest in art and ever developing multi-disciplinary practice that also includes DJ’ing: “Art feels to me like something that gives me room to express and create universes that don’t exist. It allows me to communicate in a different way, on my own terms and to create different version of myself.”– African Art Features Agency funded by the National Arts Council of South Africa. 

Words by Sandiso Ngubane.

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“I just can’t believe the things people say to me/ Am I black or white?/ Am I straight or gay?” These words by the late musician Prince from his 1981 song ‘Controversy’ resonate in my head as I listen to Boemo Diale speak. The young artist’s first show ‘Permaculture’ opened at Kalashnikovv Gallery in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, at the beginning of May.

Although she describes herself as a black Motswana woman the artist is not shying away from her racial ambiguity, making it the subject of her small gallery debut. Nine mixed media works on paper featuring cartoon-like figures on a background with foliage serve as a personal reflection, creating a regenerative consciousness in the artist’s own engagement with the nuances of gender, race, spirituality and identity. 

Permaculture is described as the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient. 

“When I hear the word ‘permaculture’ it makes me think of cultural aesthetics,” she says, adding that she has always existed in a liminal space, her identity juxtaposed between blackness on her mother’s side, and the racial ambiguity of her paternal family, which appeared white.    

“The work is a kind of commentary on identity and working through cultural aesthetics as a black person. These yellow and black characters represent racial ambiguity and myself. It’s about growing up in Rustenburg and Mafikeng – towns in the North West province of South Africa –  and being racially ambiguous in a black space and then later coming into a white space and being a black body. It’s about constantly navigating through these spaces. The foliage represents a jungle or forest. I’m this black woman navigating through the confusion and dysmorphia.”

Diale’s early childhood in Rustenberg was spent with her domestic worker grandmother, living in what was termed ‘servant’s quarters’. At school, other kids called her ‘lekgoa’ (white person) and teased her in Setswana saying things like ‘o tlhapa ka lebese’ (she bathes in milk). While she finds neither particularly offensive, it does of course create a sense of alienation in a child, and this is often carried well into adulthood for many people with an obvious multicultural heritage. 

“I later on moved to a suburban home in Parkview, Johannesburg. I think I was far less conscious of my racial ambiguity there because I guess the privilege sort of shields you from that, but the juxtaposition of growing up with my grandmother in a maid’ quarters and then having a helper and their kid growing up in the back of our home – it was a bit confusing.”

Of course the deconstruction of racial ambiguity is nothing new in art but whereas the work of someone like Adrian Piper is often viewed as political or even confrontational, Boemo Diale’s engagement with her heritage is more the function of a personal reckoning with her own nuanced existence, devoid of any direct political statements. Her use of colour – bright pink, yellow, green, red – and embellishing her characters with tattoos is more about engaging with the aesthetic reality of racial ambiguity than it is about, say, confronting and addressing social prejudices. 

“I just love bright colours and pretty things and I think that, if done right it doesn’t have to look kitsch,” she says. Pointing to one piece, she explains: “This has the text ‘if you go, you can’t come back’. I was thinking about having to choose a certain kind of expression for myself, which I realise is kind of silly. On this one I wrote ‘Because I said so’. I think that’s just about teen angst and not wanting to commit to a particular cultural box.”

The self-taught artist is currently studying film at the University of Witwatersrand and says while she took art classes in high school and thought about enrolling to an art school after matric, she questioned what her intentions with it would be. Film is an ‘easier’ medium for her. She is currently working on a larger narrative film project for which this show ‘Permaculture’ serves as a storyboard. – African Art Features Agency funded by the National Arts Council of South Africa. 

Cover image : Permaculture 5 (2021). Boemo Diale’s gallery debut features mixed media works on archival paper

‘Permaculture’ runs at Kalashnikovv Gallery until May 31

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Anchored in the truisms of the human experience, this exhibition reduces, refines, and redirects our attention back to the reality of our collective being. Simply, this exhibition focuses on the quotidian habits performed universally, condensed into four categories: Work, Family, Leisure, and Entertainment. Each category is a reminder that the essence of our connectivity – simultaneously as individuals within our local communities, and as individuals present within a wider ecosystem of cultural production – is contained within that which is physical, imbued by the human thought and spirit.

The title of the exhibition, presupposes that no matter which geographical, philosophical, or spiritual planes we transverse, the bonds we create are not formed by proximity but rather commonality. Ben Agbee’s colourful contortions are an ode to the characters which make up our communities; with women, children, and animals as pillars of strength and sustenance. His use of intense colours, applied with delicate precision, coupled with his signature use of symbolism, form complex yet coherent compositions of cultural nuance.

This translation of culture onto canvas is recognisable within James Mishio’s portraiture and figurative paintings which, as he describes, captures the “mood of the moment”. His ability to communicate the multitude of human temperaments with a revelatory realism, subjects the viewer to a place of quiet introspection, where the personality of the sitter transmits itself through the richly textured impasto.

Theophilus Tetteh’s work combines the dramatic and intimate to portray transient tales of city life. His figures, which at times stand solo and at other times are accompanied by large crowds, offer an enchanting spontaneity where the subject appears to be captured within the bustling environment and time is momentarily paused. The architectural framework Tetteh employs brings his characters front and centre, as though to accurately make known their particularity; of that which is obvious and hidden. Jimas Ametonou’s meditative compositions abstract the subject from their locality and reposition them within a realm in which their reality is restructured through a universal lens.

These subjects exist, not as effects of their environment, but rather the source of its creation. As the curator of the show and the founder of the eponymous gallery Kensu Oteng suggests that: “Art, as a communicative act, allows us to acquire knowledge of oneself through the lens of another. In this, art takes on a transformative role by assembling our differences into a unified narrative that offers clarity to the multitudes of our life experiences. This exhibition, through its exploration of our duty to work, our obligations to family, the necessity of leisure, and the cathartic release of entertainment, contemplates our collective participation in the forging of our reality.”

Alongside the contemporary artworks, Kensu Oteng presents traditional antiques from across the African continent. When asked about the motivation behind the unconventional approach of presenting emerging contemporary creations with antique works, founder Kensu Oteng answers: “The combination of art from emerging contemporary artists with antiques is a philosophical and practical choice. Philosophical because I believe one must ground themselves in the past for clarity of the future, in this case, we learn how contemporary artists on the continent are guided with the same intentionality as unknown makers that came before them. It is also practical because it addresses how we display and contextualise- or decontextualise- works in order to make their meaning digestible. In We Find What We Seek, I wish to stay true to the function of the works.”

Having been a part of the arts and heritage field, both in an academic and professional respect, Kensu Oteng set out to bridge that in which he had learnt and loved. After graduating the University of Southampton with a degree in Archaeology and English- with years of experience in handling and documenting material culture on domestic and international fieldworks- Kensu Oteng continued his interest in cultural heritage by working for English Heritage. His time at Kenwood House confirmed his passion for art and antiques, and so with that he began to expand his knowledge; seeking out the advice and guidance of dealers, collectors, scholars, and most importantly doing his own research. It was with this he recognised African art and antiques resonated with him the most- ultimately making a connection with his own Ghanaian heritage.

“For the future, I hope to continue to offer a space for ideas to be pursued and artists to evolve. I like to think of this as a continuum model, in which knowledge is built upon and then translated into something meaningful” adds Kensu Oteng.

The exhibition We Find What We Seek will be held from 25 May to 5 June 2021. For more information, please visit Kensu Oteng‘s website or contact the gallery at contact@kensuoteng.com. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Group Exhibition

‘We Find What We Seek

May 25th – June 5th 2021

Kensu oteng – Coningsby Gallery
30 Tottenham St, Bloomsbury London, W1T 4RJ

11AM – 7PM

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Alex Ayivi was born in 1993 in France from Togolese parents and grew up near Paris. He is a French contemporary visual artist. He graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Bourges and later from ENSAV La Cambre in Brussels, in 2018 in printmaking. In 2019, Ayivi benefited from the first residency of the Culture & Diversity Foundation in collaboration with the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, where he exhibited his famous project La MUA for a month.

He also exhibited at the Centre de la Gravure de la Louvière in Belgium. As a second-generation Togolese immigrant, his work explores Afrotopia, Pan-Africanism and family; subjects that are intertwined in an uninterrupted technical wandering. His work is multidisciplinary and borrows from drawing, silk-screening and painting. I met Alex Ayivi in his studio. This is the content of our discussion.

Louise Thurin (L.T): Thank you for accepting this interview in your workspace, Alex. You graduated from the Beaux-arts de Bourges and ENSAV La Cambre in engraving and printmaking. At the end of your studies, you produced a particularly promising and acclaimed first project, “60 years is too much”.

Alex Ayivi (A.A): Thank you. “60 Years is Too Much” was an anticipatory project based on the political crisis in Togo in 2017-1018. Following the dictatorial declarations of Faure Gnassingbé – in presidency since 2005 and “worthy” successor of his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma who ruled the country for 38 years – large-scale protests took place in Lomé with the slogan “50 years is too much”. The aim was to constitutionally prevent Faure from standing for a fourth consecutive presidential run in 2020. It was a familiar, daily, omnipresent subject. At home, we talked about politics all the time. I wanted to deal with the situation and contribute in my own way to this popular resistance movement.

The idea was to create the fictional character of a Togolese journalist and press illustrator called Kossi Sossou, who was killed in 2027 by the forces of law and order during yet another demonstration against the president – who would still be Faure Gnassingbé. I created his identity card, protest tools and a fictitious opposition party to which he was attached, the Ligue for Freedom. The party even had its own t-shirts.

The heart of the project are these silkscreens on cardboard. I attribute these works in this fiction to Kossi Sossou, who has them published in the major Togolese and French-speaking newspapers.

L.T: Why did you choose to create with cardboard?

A.A: It is a simple and beautiful medium. It reminds me of the roots, the resourcefulness, even the urgency – “Quick, I’ll take what I have!”of the signs of the demonstrations I saw organised in front of the Togo embassy in Paris. In Dialogue interrompu, we recognise Nana Akufo-Addo, the president of Ghana, Togo’s neighbour, by his small round glasses. On the left, of course, is Faure Gnassingbé with his youthful features. Back in 2017-2018 when Gnassingbé was scheming, Nana publicly and frontally opposed him. It is the image of a man I hope has integrity that I represented.

A.A: It’s a project that was made at a distance from its subject. I was inspired by the images broadcast in a loop on continuous news channels – hence these effects of superposition, of fragmentation. I was very inspired by the format of the plasma TV screen and if you look closely at this series, you see the scrolling banner motif appearing repeatedly.

L.T: Now that it’s said, some of the motifs remind me of the front pages of Jeune Afrique and the photomontages of election results…. Who are the people in the crowd behind the two men? Supporters plebisciting Gnassingbé? Or Togolese opponents who want to overthrow him?

A.A: It is not clear, but one can make out signs superimposed on them – which also act as a mise en abime of the medium.

L.T: Your characters are represented with closed eyes, blind – and mute: no words, no chanted signs. Only a kind of bubble, in which you do not write.

A.A: Yes, they are empty bubbles. As a nod to the comic strip, which I like very much, but I consider that a text would focus attention too easily. That’s all you might see.

The work Crise – Crisis – depicts a street in Lomé on a day of protest. There is an armed soldier and a military van. Superimposed on the picture is a profile of President Faure, and at the bottom, a scrolling strip of news channels. On the right, there is a sort of bubble and a pie chart, which obviously evokes polling figures and election results. I like all these forms of visual dynamics which TV news are full of these days. There’s beauty, I think, in PowerPoint, screen splits, little logos in the top right-hand corner…

I am pessimistic about Togolese political developments. Elections are always held, well or not. The opposition never manages to stop this charade operated by the military to ensure the illegitimate president in place. Sadly, I feel that I have done this work of foresight: we are approaching “60 years is too long”. In the same way, the utopia of the Monnaie Unique Africaine (MUA) – African Single Currency – is likely to remain a utopia. There is a project for a common West African currency, but it is not happening.

L.T: Tell us about this second project. In 2019, you were the laureate of the first residency of the Fondation Culture et Diversité in collaboration with the Cité internationale des Arts for which you propose the MUA.

A.A: The idea was to create a common pan-African currency that would replace the colonial currency of the CFA Franc. It is a project with a Francophone prism and it is not meant to be perfect. I have put together a non-exhaustive list of African political figures from the 20th century – some classics and some more atypical figures like Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia or Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. All are worth 99 MUA. In this monetary fiction, I did not want to rank the personalities on the currencies.

“Here, give me a cash ticket! – What do you want, 100, 200, 300? Some florins? What do you want?”

L.T: For the opening of the exhibition at the Cité internationale, you did a performance: a distribution of paper money that was quite successful, apparently. The scene reminds me both of mafiosi films and dystopian photographs of German hyperinflation.

I signed the money with a stamp. To dry the ink, we had to fan them. It was a banana republic atmosphere. They were so popular that I even had bundles of them stolen during the exhibition! [laughs] Thomas Sankara greenbacks are now collectors’ items.

L.T: After the success of the MUA in 2019, you took a break from creating. Now you are back and there is a clear technical break in your work.

A.A: Yes, I went back to painting after years of silk-screening. I now concentrate on portraits in dark tones. I never spoke directly about my intimate self in my previous works. This is my cousin. Here, my little brother. Here is my sister – and behind her my little brother again. I often draw him, he’s a good model.

L.T: All your characters have closed eyes. In these paintings, they emanate a certain serenity, relaxation, breathing… They are young contemporary Afros who are resting from their daily life, giving themselves a moment of peace.

A.A: I’ve been using the closed-eye pattern for quite a long time. It just came about. For me, it’s an almost deathlike iconography. The porous ones of eternal sleep and daily rest. The figures I drew for the MUA already had closed eyes – and in fact, are dead.

A.A: I see these family portraits as an album – an album of images that would allow the faces of the first family generation on French ground to be passed on to the next… These representations of people from the African diaspora resonate more generally with current societal issues, at a time of debates concerning “separatism”. What place do the children of the African diaspora have in French society today? What does it mean to be French in 2020 ?

From 2022 to 2023, you were an artist-in-residence at Le Consulat, a period marked by your participation in 100% L’Expo 2022, which revealed a new evolution in your style. Now based at Atelier Œ in Montreuil, how would you describe this transition and the impact this period had on your artistic practice?

That stage was crucial: following an artist residency at Place de Clichy, I joined Le Consulat Voltaire in 2022 after taking part in 100% L’Expo. Le Consulat was my first “open” shared studio — a space where I worked alongside other artists. It felt like a return to art school, and the experience proved to be particularly enriching.

During that time, I drew inspiration from reading, especially The Grammar of Fantasy (1973) by Gianni Rodari, a book that deeply influenced my work. It led me to explore a metaphysical approach to painting on wooden panels, questioning the essence of comics and the narrative codes they rely on.

As we speak, you were recently announced as the winner of the Traversées Africaines Prize, granting you the opportunity to present a solo exhibition at Galerie Mariton in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine. Congratulations! Could you tell us about what went on behind the scenes in preparing for this exhibition?

This solo show is a chance to bring together my painting practice and my wooden sculptures. I developed these sculptural pieces to go beyond the traditional format of the canvas, creating a dialogue between interior and exterior elements.

The first steps of this approach emerged at the end of 2023 in Lille, in collaboration with the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, where I presented Superbanc (2023) — my first sculpture directly inspired by my painting practice.

Discover Alex Ayivi’s work in the exhibition Hi-Dee-Hi at Galerie Mariton in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, from May 13 to June 1, 2025, as part of the Traversées Africaines program.

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Bisila Noha is a London-based ceramicist, whose works draw on different traditional practices of working with clay from around the globe. I talked to Bisila Noha about her process, her influences, and how lockdown has given her an opportunity to reflect on her work and her journey so far.

Could you tell me about how you got started in working with ceramics, and how you became an artist/maker?

I started over 7 years ago when I moved to London. A friend told me, I’m just starting a ceramics course, why don’t you join? So I started doing classes, and I got really into it. Then I went to Italy to do a residency, and I did an apprenticeship in Madrid with a ceramicist, and then I went to Mexico with potters in Oaxaca. It snowballed a bit – when I came back, I had orders and I started doing it full time, basically until lockdown. 

It’s been an amazing journey. I don’t think it was a conscious decision, other than to keep learning, but I’m super happy with how everything has evolved and where I’ve arrived. Because I’ve been focused mainly on making functional objects, this year I’ve been trying to see what happens when I am more playful and following my gut feeling. 

How important is it for the pieces that you make to be functional, and what made you want to start to be more experimental?

Maybe two years ago or so, I started realising that I was making multi-functional objects. When I started working for myself I realised I’ve been a hyper-productive person, needing to be efficient, which I think is a result of capitalism, and I was projecting all of that into what I was making. Because of the way some pieces turned out, it made them non-functional. That was very hard for me to accept. I just love this, I love how it looks, but it cannot be used. I had to tell myself, let’s embrace this, admire it for what it is. Not everything in life needs to be about being productive. 

This year has been another turning point, because I was a bit tired of making tableware, and I had some clay that my parents had brought me from Equatorial Guinea, which is where my dad is from. This is when I started working on the Baney clay project, which is the name of my dad’s village. I realised that’s the way I want to move forward – by having an idea, doing research, having time to think about it, make the pieces, and write about it. It’s a longer process and there are fewer pieces. So I’m enjoying at the moment having time to think, to spend time with the pieces, and coming up with a collection. 

It seems like the relationship and connection that you have with Equatorial Guinea has been quite transformative for you, along with your travels to places like Italy and Mexico. All these places have got their own tradition of pottery and ceramics. How have those experiences influenced you? 

Massively. I was born and raised in Spain, and I didn’t visit Equatorial Guinea until 2010. I’ve grown up in a very white environment and very detached from my African roots. It’s been more since I’ve been in the UK that I’ve been getting more into discovering that side of me, through Black Feminism, mostly. So having the chance to use the clay to explore all these things, has been amazing.

The trip to Mexico was very special. In London, and even Italy, you get a bag of clay, you don’t know where it comes from, and then you learn the technique, but I hadn’t learned much about the history of it. When I went to Mexico, I met mostly women who have learned from their mothers, their grandmothers. They go to the mine and they collect the soil, they are one with the clay that they use and the whole process. Clay for them is who they are, and their identity. It also made me realise how long humans have been using clay, and how it can be like a diary of human development and human history. Last year I went to Morocco, and that was something else. It was in the mountains with a woman called Aisha, whose method was so similar to the women in Mexico. It’s so basic, in a way. We are the same people, regardless of where we are, we have the same needs, we tend to come up with the same solutions, and clay is such a beautiful example of this. 

What’s the process that you like to use? Has it changed from when you were making the more functional pieces to what you’re doing now?

I’ve mostly thrown – using the wheel – that’s how I was trained. Now I’m mixing throwing and coiling, which is hand-building. I’m thinking of new shapes, I would love to do throwing but changing the shape, like deforming it and finishing with coiling. That’s the direction I want to follow and to keep developing.

Have you found that lockdown has given you more time and more freedom to experiment in that way?

Actually, during lockdown I didn’t go to the studio. I decided to stay at home and write more and try to look at my practice from a distance, so that I can develop the ideas and concepts that I have in my head. It was actually really great to have a break from it, after four years of full-on, being next to the clay every day. Because you make something, and you move on to the next thing and the next thing, and there’s no time to reflect. I think it’s been a process I’ve been in for a while, and lockdown has happened to take place at the same time. 

Can you tell me about Gatherers, the exhibition that you were part of?

It brought together artists from different places, who have a special connection with the clay that they use. The exhibition was in Highgate in a place called Omved Gardens, but then lockdown happened, and the gallery that organized this exhibition did an amazing job in creating a virtual experience that was very close to being physical. There is a 360 video so you can move around with your phone and see everything around you. On the website there are also rotating 3D images of the pieces. It created a lot of interest in London, and when they finally opened in July, lots of people went and sales were amazing. But it also gave the chance for people all over the world to see it, which is not something that would usually happen. It was definitely the highlight of my year.

What are some of the things that you’d like to carry forward in your practice?

I am looking at African shapes and trying to replicate them. I’m getting into fertility goddesses, because of the shapes, they are very feminine and connect back to clay being part of the birth of civilisation. So I’m reading, I’m researching and I’m trying to come up with ideas for new pieces. I’ve moved studios and I’m now in a studio with only one wheel so it’s not a place for production – this is the time for me to focus on making whatever I fancy making and grow within that. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. A selection of unique works by Bisila Noha is available to purchase on our website. Click on the link to access it.

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