adminLONDON. – A remarkable new exhibition showcasing contemporary African photography – looking at Africa’s past, present and future through the lenses of artists from the continent – has opened in London.
One of the largest exhibitions of its kind ever staged, this thrilling new collection at the Tate Modern features beautifully powerful photographs, videos and installations that capture the essence of the realities of the fastest-growing continent in the world.
It eschews a view of Africa that has historically been defined by Western images.
British-Ghanaian curator Osei Bonsu has taken a thematic approach to explore the complex diversity of the vast continent through the eyes of 36 artists from Africa and its diaspora.
These include legendary artists such as Malawi’s Samson Kambalu and Ghanaian James Barnor, and new talents like Aïda Muluneh from Ethiopia, whose work Star Shine is above, and Ruth Ossai, who grew up in Nigeria and Yorkshire, in northern England.
Bonsu has divided the more than 150 works on show into three “chapters”: identity and tradition, counter histories and imagined futures, taking the viewer on a thrilling journey from Kinshasa’s bustling streets to the deserts of Mauritania.
The show uses photography, video and installation to map out the possibilities of Africa in exquisite, complex, revealing ways.
The task of distilling the complexity and diversity of this expansive continent is no small feat.
But through his deft curation, Osei has pulled off a visual feast, creating a vivid tapestry that thrusts contemporary African art firmly into the global centre.
Speaking to the BBC, he explained how his thematic approach allows examination of how the continent’s “shared histories” – from its colonial experience to post-independence revolutionary movements and its urban future – had “shaped and reshaped” how people in Africa see themselves and their place in the world.
The exhibition’s title, A World in Common, is inspired by the work of the pioneering Cameroonian historian and intellectual Achille Mbembe, who argued that we must think of the world from an African perspective.
His ideas provide the intellectual thread that runs through the exhibition, offering a bold invitation to reconsider how we view the place of Africa in the world.
By featuring many artists for the first time internationally, the Tate Modern puts emerging African talent centre stage in a museum so crucial in setting the world’s artistic agenda.
One artist featured is the British-Nigerian, Zina Saro-Wiwa.
Her work, The Invisible Man Series, 2015, explores the tradition of mask-wearing among the Ogoni, her ancestral ethnic group in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.
Her work unpacks the role masks traditionally play in Ogoni culture and is also an ode to a more personal and emotional journey. “I made this work to help me heal myself,” she told the BBC. – BBC
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter