Exhibitions

Bronwyn Katz: / // ! ǂ is still on view at Blank in Cape Town, South Africa until March 16, 2019

Bronwyn Katz has developed a new system of notation to signify the phonetics of an imagined creole language. Through the creation of new visual forms realised as sculptures and installation made of iron ore, steel, copper and string, and by incorporating aspects of sound and performance, / // ! ǂ explores, through collaboration, the interactions between the visual and the aural, taking cues from Katz’s own personal relationship to language and the voice. The title of the exhibition denotes four selected click consonants from Khoekhoe and other Southern African languages, some of which face extinction due to colonisation. These four click consonants and their signifiers were in many ways the starting point for Katz’s conception of the project, informing both the visual forms, or orthography, and sounds of her imagined language.

Libita Clayton: Quantum Ghost is still on view at Gasworks in London, United Kingdom until March 24, 2019

Comprising of an immersive sound installation, a series of large-scale photograms and a programme of live performances, Quantum Ghost maps a journey through archives and territories related to the artist’s heritage. Clayton digs deep into personal documents and oral histories tracing her family tree across different mining regions and colonial geographies of extraction. In particular, she reconstructs the paper trail left by her late father, a political exile who studied mining engineering in Cornwall. Clayton’s research aims to unearth the subterranean histories and political undercurrents connecting the mining regions of Namibia and Cornwall. From mined ores and sedimentary rocks to precious metals and rare earths, her work examines the raw materials at the core of capitalist extraction, revealing how the echoes of colonialism and diasporic migration reverberate through the deep time of geology and across the ruined landscapes of the Anthropocene.

Megalopolis: Voices from Kinshasa is still on view at the GRASSI Museum of Ethnography in Leipzig, Germany until April 14, 2019

The urban reality of the African continent is rarely shown in ethnological museums. The GRASSI Museum of Ethnography focuses on this reality and gives 24 artists from Kinshasa a “carte blanche” to have their voices heard in the museum. The principle of the “carte blanche” changes the rules of the ethnological museum. The exhibition is not shown from the point of view of a European ethnologist; instead, the artists of Kinshasa are themselves conveying their concerns to museum visitors, without filters: colonial past and its effects, violence, oppression of women, war, corruption, exploitation, environmental destruction, cultural heritage, spirituality, urban everyday life. Traditional sculptures and masks from the Congo appear in many of the contemporary works of art and thus link not only the past with the present, but also the museum’s Congo holdings with the metropolis of Kinshasa.

Film Screenings

Goethe Films, One Fine Day: Africa Now will take place at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, Canada from March 5-12, 2019

Founded in 2008 by Berlin filmmaker Tom Tykwer, One Fine Day is an initiative that supports African filmmakers in the writing and production of their own stories through mentorships and training programs. In the time since, One Fine Day Films has mentored over 1000 filmmakers from 21 African countries. Goethe Films highlights six Kenyan-German features that have emerged from One Fine Day’s collaborations with Nairobi-based Ginger Ink Films and earned awards from TIFF to Rotterdam to Los Angeles. The narratives on display are thrillingly varied, ranging from coming-of-age dreams to adult realities, and told though studied realism as well innovative approaches to the metaphysical. At once culturally specific and universal, the films showcase the true diversity of talent currently flourishing as part of the project, including major projects by emerging women writers and directors.

Forums

Open Space Forum will open at various places in London, United Kingdom from March 28-30, 2019

Open Space presents the programme for its inaugural edition of Forum, a three-day event comprising artist performances, film screenings, talks and workshops. Forum: Of Hosts & Guests will run across three cultural venues in Bloomsbury, London: University College London (UCL), Mary Ward House, and Pushkin House. Through diverse, site-specific responses to these spaces, six participating artists will explore ideas of hospitality, hierarchy, ritual and belonging. Deriving its title from Albert Camus’s 1957 short story L’Hôte, which translates into both ‘the host’ and ‘the guest’, Of Hosts & Guests invites artists and audiences to play with the duality of playing both of these roles. The programme will unfold as a journey through spaces, challenging social structures in pursuit of social connection and asking how we can establish a sense of home and community in the face of contested borders and endangered notions of belonging.