The Exuberance Project will investigate what is abundant, enthusiastic, overflowing, unrestrained and joyful in contemporary creative and performing arts of Africa. Africa has long been described by critics as being perched on a threshold – between inadequacy and potential, between something and nothingness. The vast complexity of a continent is thereby reduced, frozen by clichéd metaphors and paradoxical summations. Such large, elusive and unhappy representations work to shape individual imaginaries and bound collective sensibilities. That is to say, if African creative practices have long been framed by fractured identifications, shadowed by humiliation, or overexposed as hyper-visible depravity, how can creative people both acknowledge legacies of oppression and produce without recapitulating pathologies? Indeed, critics and artists have, in diverse and particular ways, responded to pessimistic representations that continually appear in intellectual, political and aesthetic realms.
Rael Salley Gipca ICA Africa Month Jay Pather the names we give Afro-pessimism exuberance joy power identity survival Participating artists: The Center for Historical Reenactments George Tebogo Mahashe Photoxp Freegender Mohau Modisakeng Nicole Sarmiento JasminaMetalwy & Philip Rizk Dylan Valley Aryan Kaganof Muholi Zanele Memory Biwa Nicole Sarmiento Tazneem Wentzel Tracey Rose Jethrouw Louw Weaam Williams Nafia Kocks Mawande Zenzile Toni Stuart Lucelle Campbell Justin Davy Sara Gouveia Bradley Van Sitters Monwabisi Xhakwe Dani Swai Alaa Rhabani Ferdinand van Tura
Participating artists: The Center for Historical Reenactments, George Tebogo Mahashe, Photoxp, Freegender, Mohau Modisakeng, Nicole Sarmiento, JasminaMetalwy & Philip Rizk, Dylan Valley, Aryan Kaganof, Muholi Zanele, Memory Biwa Nicole Sarmiento Tazneem Wentzel, Tracey Rose, Jethrouw Louw, Weaam Williams, Nafia Kocks, Mawande Zenzile, Toni Stuart, Lucelle Campbell, Justin Davy, Sara Gouveia, Bradley Van Sitters, Dylan Valley, Monwabisi Xhakwe Dani Swai Alaa Rhabani Ferdinand van Tura
Curator: Raél Jero Salley
Essays by: Clive Kellner, Kim Gurney
Gallery: Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town
Dates: 11 May 2012 – 13 May 2012
Website: http://www.gipca.uct.ac.za/project/the-exuberance-project/
Pages: 43
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