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34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Central Lancashire
Reflections on the self: Five African women photographers
In the 1990s Contemporary African art gained exposure on the international art scene. Until then the study of African arts and cultures had mainly been circumscribed to the fields of ethnography and anthropology.
The seminal exhibition “The Magicians of the Earth” (Pompidou Centre/La Villette, Paris, 1989) was one of the first events to place contemporary African artists on an equal footing with their Western peers. It sparked much criticism from non-Western observers for its “neo-exoticism” to which publications like Third Text, and later Revue Noire, then Nka Magazine, provided a counter-discourse.
In 2011 Eyene curated “Reflections on the Self”, and included work by some of the most acclaimed African visual artists exploring identity, self-representation and gender narratives. All five were photographers. Hélène Amouzou (Togo/Belgium); Majida Khattari (Morocco/France); Zanele Muholi (South Africa, and recently included in Documenta 13); Senayt Samuel (Eritrea/Switzerland); Nontsikelelo Veleko (South Africa/France, and later featured in the V&A’s exhibition Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography, 2011).
Eyene aimed to reach out far beyond the gender narrative she set out to explore. The exhibition addressed various socio-political issues encountered throughout the world: the recent wave of homophobia in France; violence against women generally, the recent outcry on rape cases in India; restrictions of movement for non-Westerners as well as the conditions of asylum seekers in the West.
The show was developed as a curatorial element complementing two Africultures publications edited by Eyene dealing with feminism in Africa and the Diaspora, and women’s art practice: Féminisme(s) en Afrique et dans la Diaspora, and L'Art au Féminin: Approches Contemporaines. Both publications included contributions by important French, African and American researchers and scholars, including Prof. Obioma Nnaemeka and Patricia Hill Collins
