African artists from the continent and the diaspora imagine utopian dreams of abundance and well-being beyond geographical hierarchies.
According to the curators, the works on display show a fusion of specific features of African culture with other cultures and other geographical spaces, revealing the “original energy of the itinerant fate of exile and settlement, demanded by the context of slavery, or of voluntary or forced migration. ”Many of these phenomena result from the current global economic, political, and climate crises but they also offer a universe of creative possibilities. “These ‘proposals’ neither illustrate a historically defined trend or movement nor advocate a specific ideological reading; rather, they call on diverse techniques, disciplines and languages, combining frenzied fantasies of form, colour, and sound, material experiences, thematic and temporal leaps, and direct references to non-Western spiritualities with the use or evocation of post-industrial technology to create magical or science-fictional narratives”, write the curators Camila Maissune e João Pinharanda in the exhibition text.
The participating artists include Jota Mombaça, Jeannette Ehlers, Evan Ifekoya, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Sandra Mujinga, April Bey, Gabriel Massan (they/them), Tabita Rezaire, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Lungiswa Gqunta, and Baloji. These artists are part of diverse communities from around the world, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, Brazil, Trinidad, The Bahamas, and more.
The exhibition will be on view from the 18th of September, 2024, until the 17th of March, 2025. More information here.
