Now showing

Now showing

Diaspora at Home

With Nidhal Chamekh, Bady Dalloul, Em’kal Eyongakpa, Rahima Gambo, Laura Henno, Abraham Oghobase, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, Chloé Quenum. And screenings by Jumana Manna and Marie Voignier.

4 November 2019– 31 January 2020

Venue: Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos

The Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA, Lagos) and KADIST, Paris are pleased to present Diaspora at Home a group exhibition which provides an opportunity to engage in a variety of conversations on the issue of mobility within Africa. The exhibition is presented in memory of Bisi Silva (1962 – 2019), founder of CCA, Lagos who strongly believed in promoting cultural exchanges and creating new networks throughout Africa.

Diaspora at Home takes the KADIST collection as a resource to be articulated in shifting cultural conditions, reflecting on the role of artistic forms in the circulation of knowledge within the African continent. Rather than transporting their artworks to Lagos, a group of international artists were invited to produce new projects on-site and create conversations with the local art scene. The artists engage with the complex interdependencies between peoples and the social consequences of the diverse mobility within Africa. Em’kal Eyongakpa collects sounds of water and sounds from the ongoing (but much ignored) civil war in Cameroon to create kinetic sound installations, while Laura Henno sheds light on the European border in the archipelago Comoros, in the Indian ocean. Mobility is seen through the lens of flora and fauna; with Chloé Quenum revealing the story behind the transnational journey of fruits from the market of Lagos; or with Rahima Gambo exploring time-geography from a feminist perspective through the weaver bird. This project is also the occasion of looking at the historical connections between the North and the south of the Sahara, Bady Dalloul reflects on the history of the North African and Middle Eastern communities based in the city of Lagos. The series of screenings opens the question of mobility beyond the continent, Marie Voignier will present her current research where she traces the journey of female African entrepreneurs in China.



LineGuage: Textual Imagery | Linear Allegories

8 December 2018– 5 April 2019

Venue: Centre for Contemporary Art Lagos

LineGuage explores the co-creation of imagery between African artists and writers, a relationship that has continued into contemporary art in Africa but is seldom discussed. The exhibition aims to capture a binocular perspective of this relationship and inspire a new conversation on the subject. The exhibition explores how artists not only co-create images with authors but engage with the visual intellection processes of illustration that emphasize directness of execution and the economy of form and visual language through linear rendering of subjects in such a way that less is said, and more is yet said. Processes like interpretation, condensation, simplification, distillation are highlighted. The exhibition brings the visual works in conversation with the books which they illustrate or which has inspired them.

Bruce Onobrakpeya, Uche Okeke and Ibrahim El-Salahi deftly condensed the ideas of several writers into prints and lyrical drawings. Bruce Onobrakpeya’s Portfolio of Art and Literature are illustrations or visual interpretations of poems, short stories and folk songs by various African authors mainly of Nigerian descent, as well as some of his writings and translations. El-Salahi’s paintings, drawings and book illustrations draw on a vivid imagination rooted in the traditions of his homeland which he fuses with inventive forms of calligraphy, abstraction and a profound knowledge of art history. In his work El-Salahi established a new artistic vocabulary – uniting Islamic, African and European elements in a unique, surreal style.

In another instance, Chinua Achebe’s books found familiar expressions in the works of Victor Ekpuk and Chijioke Onuora. For over a decade, Onuora has produced series of drawings inspired by the imagery created by Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. His constantly shifting practice has carried this into his current exploration of batik. For instance, his depiction of Igbo wooden drums – “Ikoro”, reference its role in Things fall Apart. Victor Ekpuk’s drawings easily find expressions in the title of Achebe’s books. Except the drawing commissioned for the cover of the compilation of Achebe’s works – “African Trilogy”, all art on the covers are from works that he had already created with titles different from Achebe’s books. These drawing are taken from works created at different times and in different circumstances. For instance, the cover for “No Longer at Ease”, is from a series of ink drawings on paper – “Lagos Suite” created in 2013 by the artists during a residency in Lagos. But perhaps, most remarkable is how the aesthetics of Victor Ekpuk’s work interestingly coincide and complement with Achebe’s themes.

LineGuage further explores the relationship between art and literature by inviting five artists – Amarachi Okafor, Odun Orimolade, Stacey Okparavero, Rahima Gambo and Jess Atieno, whose work engage with the idea of storytelling, to respond to Kintu, a novel by Ugandan author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. Kintu gives a snapshot of different periods of Uganda’s history through characters who are dynamic and engaging, with interesting personal stories of their own. The UK Guardian notes that the author, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi does for Ugandan literature what Chinua Achebe did for Nigerian writing. While Makumbi documents the Ugandan story, she also subverts Ugandans’ understanding of who they are as a people, questioning the popular conceptions of gender, religion and mental illness. These issues raised by Makumbi become a departure point for these five artists.

Curator: Iheanyi Onwuegbucha



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