REFLECTIONS
on Black girlhood
Haneem Christian
Ruth Motau
Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi
Motlhoki Nono
Lebogang Tlhako
curated by Danielle Bowler
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2 Sept - 31 Oct, 2024
Market Photo Workshop
138 Lilian Ngoyi St, Newtown
Opening: Mon 2 Sept, 18:00
with sounds from Nombuso Mathibela
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Woven into this group exhibition are reflections on Black girlhood from five contemporary South African artists across multiple generations. Collectively they sing “a black girl’s song” (to cite Ntozake Shange), exploring themes of memory, biography, performance, the body, community, care and “being in public”, through creative practices of waywardness, play and (insistently) joy.
But
isn’t it funny?
That when they ask about black childhood, all they are interested in is our pain,
as if the joy-parts were accidental.
- Koleka Putuma, Black Joy
Working against the portrait as capture, or figurative representation as the sole definition of portraiture, the works in this show turn to the abstract, out-of-focus and absent, in their poetic, tender, embodied, and life-filled offerings. In the intimacy of building community and chosen family, of twinned siblinghood and home, they reverberate in their reflections, asking us how and who we see. As portals, they are portraits in perpetual motion: questioning, holding, seeing and reflecting Black girlhood in all its expansiveness.
Whether throwing light, giving serious consideration, as consequence or commentary, the meaning of ‘reflection’ is amplified here. These are images and imaginings of return, of seeking and seeing, of reflection as memory, re-collection and re-memory – of engaging the refracted mirror, whether person or object. Through sound, image, video and sculpture, the artists ask for our own reflections on Blackness and girlhood, as they present theirs.
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Reflections: On Black Girlhood draws its inspiration from ‘Sighting Black Girlhood’, a hybrid course, taught across the universities of Johannesburg and Pennsylvania, exploring what it means to sight, cite and site experiences of Black girlhood across South Africa, the USA and the Caribbean.
This exhibition was made possible through the collaborative support of the Center for Experimental Ethnography (CEE), University of Pennsylvania, and the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class (RGC), University of Johannesburg. Special thanks also to Stevenson Gallery and Daily for their additional support and care.
EXHIBITION PROGRAMME
Queer Photo Practices
a conversation & sharing session
with Haneem Christian & friends
Join us in the Market Photo Workshop gallery for a conversation and sharing session around queer photographic modalities and community practices with artist Haneem Christian and friends.
Sat 7 Sept, 2024
Market Photo Workshop
10:00 - 12:00
RSVP here to join
This session is collaboratively presented by GALA Queer Archive and the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class. Learn more about GALA here
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Additional activations around the exhibition will be announced in due course.
Watch this space!