Athi-Patra Ruga at Impressions Gallery

WHATIFTHEWORLD is pleased to share an update on Athi-Patra Ruga’s inclusion in the exhibition Africa State of Mind, now touring to Impressions Gallery, Bradford. The exhibition opens on the 29th of March until the 15th of June 2019.

Africa State of Mind, curated by Ekow Eshun with NAE, explores the work of an emergent generation of photographers from across the African continent. 16 artists from 11 different countries interrogate ideas of ‘Africanness’ through highly subjective renderings of life and identity on the continent, along the way revealing Africa to be a psychological space as much as a physical territory; a state of mind as much as a physical location. The exhibiting artists are: Emmanuelle Andrianjafy, Sammy Baloji, Raphaël Barontini, Neil Beloufa, Girma Berta, Eric Gyamfi, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Lebohang Kganye, Namsa Leuba, Michael MacGarry, Sabelo Mlangeni, Mimi Cherono Ng’ok, Musa N Nxumalo, Ruth Ossai, Athi Patra Ruga and Michael Tsegaye.

Their work is inspired by wide range of subjects: urban nightlife in Johannesburg; Afrofuturism; construction projects in Ethiopia; vodun (voodoo) religion in Benin; and Ghana’s LGBT+ community, among others. What unites these diverse approaches is an emphasis on subjectivity to explore life and identity on the continent, by its inhabitants and diaspora. Together, the artists reveal Africa to be a psychological space as much as a physical territory; a state of mind as much as a tangible location.

Click here for more information.

Mohau Modisakeng at Sharjah Biennial 14

WHATIFTHEWORLD is pleased to announce that Mohau Modisakeng will be participating in the 2019 edition of the Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber (SB14), opening today. Modisakeng will showcase ‘Land of Zanj’ (2019), a new performance and mixed-media installation on Friday, 8 March.

In his SB14 project, Modisakeng draws links between experiences of displacement within South Africa’s history of racial segregation and those of formerly enslaved diasporic Africans. Land of Zanj (2019) is a choreographed procession and site-specific installation named after the island of Zanzibar or Azania, an ancient term used to describe various parts of southeastern Africa. Approaching the body as a bearer of collective memory, Mohau Modisakeng’s work invokes historical mechanisms of violence and grapples with the tensions and contradictions of inequality, exploitation, slavery and race.

For more information, click here.