The exhibition and its complimentary cultural programme explores themes of visibility, a safe passage and creating a homecoming away from home that welcomes diverse identities from across Africa to commune and coexist under one roof, in Cape Town.
Theophilus Tetteh, Solitary Lover III, 2021. Courtesy of the artist & Madlozi Art Gallery.
The experimental visual exploration is an immersive salon of contemporary art and heritage by curators Beathur Mgoza Baker and Sara Bint Moneer Khan to negate cultural invisibility and silencing. It is inspired by the legacy of District Six as a place of memory and convergence where diverse cultures could coexist and truly belong.
A salon, in true African spirit, is a gathering place for culture, storytelling, and community togetherness. The Cape Town Homecoming Centre is pleased to present a specially curated exhibition and immersive journey by Beathur Mgoza Baker and Sara Bint Moneer Khan that unites diverse cultures from across the African continent through visual art in their home – a site of hope, remembrance, and belonging.
This exhibition and accompanying cultural program, explores critical questions through the work of contemporary visual artists, filmmakers, cultural thinkers, and performers, creates a space for dialogue and sharing at a time when our country is struggling to provide Africans with a sense of belonging. Bringing them together as a community at the salon.
At the Homecoming Centre, a center of cultural pride and dignity, we encourage audiences to explore this unique gathering place of memory, beauty, creativity, and imagination that exposes ideas and art from throughout the African continent. The exhibition responds to the historical space and symbolic role of District Six as a unique place of integration, storytelling and negating difference to enable belonging.
‘Salon Afrique’ uses the stunning landscape of Cape Town as a canvas to welcome people to engage in an immersive visual art program that allows us to reflect back on history and the knowledge learned, while simultaneously looking forward with optimism.
‘Salon Africa’ aspires to reflect the voices of South African and pan-African artists united in their capacity to celebrate Africa and our position in the world through a deeper investigation of memory, cultural identity, and lived experiences that the artworks portray.
The exhibition, together with its accompanying cultural program, offers a homecoming away from home – a safe welcome and experiential space for creative expression – an immersive salon of art and traditions, where cultures and people meet and connect.
Responding to the Homecoming Centre’s history and tradition, curators Beathur Mgoza Baker of Madlozi Art & Heritage and Sara Bint Moneer Khan of MASHŪRAH ARTS decided to create a space of affirmation, belonging, and pride. Both are independent curators renowned globally for their critical engagement with topics of identity, belonging, and memory, as well as curating the body and decolonial contemporary art practice.
Their individual and combined work and ideas reflect the contemporary moment in art, critical thought, the complexity of identity, gender, geopolitics, public culture, and heritage that responds with great resonance to that of the District Six Museum. Individually both curators are involved in establishing physical and intellectual space for examining critical themes around belonging, memory, and cultural representation on the African continent, in the global South, and globally.
The exhibition is on view until the 9th of July 2022. For more information, please visit the District Six Museum, Madlozi Art & Heritage, and MASHŪRAH ARTS.
