WHATIFTHEWORLD , Cape Town, South Africa
29 Nov 2017 - 27 Jan 2018
WHATIFTHEWORLD present Queens in Exile – a major solo exhibition of new work by Athi-Patra Ruga.
Queens in Exile is about telling better stories. This isn’t simply a revisionist exercise, patching up inconvenient holes in the historical record. Instead, Ruga excavates collective memory and exclusionary national myth to rebuild both in wholly new shapes – to make a world where the exiled can reign. The result is a land of many queens, lost and found and forgotten.
The culmination of a three year long project and a continuation of his critically acclaimed exhibition The Future White Woman of Azania Saga in 2014, Ruga presents the viewer with a ambitious and immersive exhibition over three floors including Over the Rainbow a large scale film projection that can best be described as an electrifying experience. The bulk of the exhibition is made up of exquisitely hand embroidered petit point tapestries which unequivocally proclaim Ruga as a master of his chosen medium.
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