From climate colonialism to new perspectives from queer artists in Mozambique, these are some of our most-read articles this year.
(clockwise) Torkwase Dyson, Liquid A Place, 2023. Homme Adams Park 72500 Thrush Road, Palm Desert at Desert X. Photography courtesy of Lance Gerber; Rhael "LionHeart" Cape, Still from the film "Those with Walls for Windows", 2023; Cameron Rowland, macandal, 2023 Oxalic acid 37.5 x 30.5 x 67 cm Packets of materials that could invoke spirits, protect against punishment, and poison slave masters were called macandals. They were at the center of a plot in 1757 to poison all the white people in Haiti. The plot was organized by hundreds of enslaved and free black people. All macandals were subsequently outlawed. Their trade and use continued despite their criminalization. Enslaved people throughout the Atlantic world used arsenic, manioc juice, ground glass, and oxalic acid to poison overseers, masters, masters’ children, and livestock. Oxalic acid is a stain remover and household cleaner; Blessing Atas, The Egrets. Courtesy the artist; View of Louisa Marajo’s installation in the exhibition space (FESPACO headquarters in Ouagadougou) © Mélinda Fourn.
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In Conversation
Lamin Leroy Gibba: “I want to tell stories that feel truthful”
The actor, writer, and producer reflects on dominant cultural narratives and the complex lives of Black and queer characters on screen and stage.
Tender Photo
Emmanuel Iduma’s Archive Attempts to Hold All That Is Intimate
The artist has created a participatory digital archive around the tenderness in photographs, refusing temporal linearity by drawing out a kinship.
Berni Searle, Untitled (red, white, yellow, brown), 1998. Installation view at Norval Foundation. Photo: Vusumzi Nkomo
Having But Little Gold
How Berni Searle Contemplates the Weight of Loss
A retrospective carefully explores Berni Searle’s main subjects – ruins, residues, and loss as a uniquely legitimate site for meditating on liberation.
Ecologies
Locating Blackness In Intimate Ecologies
Ama Josephine Budge on how to resist climate colonialism through a capacious, trans-temporal Blackness.
African Art Hubs
Institutions Build on Art Scenes that Grew Out of Common Artistic Needs
How do new arts hubs from Accra to Antananarivo relate to ongoing collective efforts that have enabled production in inconceivable circumstances?
Aria Dean, ABATTOIR, U.S.A.!, Installation view, 2023. The Renaissance Society. Photo: Robert Chase Heishman.
Abattoir, U.S.A!
Aria Dean Conjures a Deathly Spectacle
In Chicago, the artist helps us experience connections between animal slaughter, violence towards Black peoples, and the brutalization of captured bodies.
Contemporary Black Discourses
Navigating Pain and Possibility
Afrofuturism and Afropessimism both seek to step outside of limiting narratives and invite self-awareness into the conversation around Black lives.
Installation View
3rd Biennale Internationale de Sculpture de Ouagadougou (BISO) – The Fire of Origins
Inspired by the work of the writer Emmanuel Dongala, Le Feu des origins, will run until 4th November in Ouagadougou celebrating contemporary crafts and art.
Marilú Mapengo Námoda, What does the silence pray for? / Para que reza o silencio?, 2023, Sculpture, 2m x .5m. Photo: Lorna Zita
Sem Sombras
Queer Artists Bring New Perspectives to Mozambique
Curators Onyịnye Alheri and Carolina Policarpo display collaborations between artists from Mozambique, Nigeria, and Angola.
Amt 45 i
Cameron Rowland Investigates how Germany Profited from the Transatlantic Slave Trade
The traces of racialised enslavement can be found in various German cities. The artist’s exhibition follows them through Frankfurt am Main.
18th Venice Architecture Biennale 2023
Lesley Lokko Breaks New Ground with The Laboratory of the Future
In presenting a compelling interplay between reality, fiction and crisis, Lokko delivers a lesson on accountability for curatorial practices.
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