The first in a series of touring exhibitions conceptualised by KAURU Contemporary Art Project,  Being Her(e) – a contemporary art exhibition opens at Galeria do Banco Económico, Luanda, Angola from 23 November 2017 – 31 January 2018. Curated by Paula Nascimento and Violet Nantume, the Luanda exhibition extends the conversations in Johannesburg over Africa Month with Being Her(e): Meditations on African Femininities.

Being Her(e) features works by some of the most prominent and emerging female artists from Africa and the African diaspora including Aida Muluneh (Ethiopia),  Ana Silva (Angola-Portugal), Euridice Getulio Kala (Mozambique), Jessica Atieno Ounga (Kenya), Immaculate Mali (Uganda), Keyezua (Angola), Lebohang Kganye (SA), Mimi Cherono Ng’ok (Kenya), Mónica de Miranda (Angola), Nandipha Mnthambo (SA), Phoebe Boswell (Kenya), Zanele Muholi (SA), Zohra Opoku (Ghana), Stacey Gillian Abe (Uganda).

“The exhibition invokes the body as a starting point – a space, simultaneously, intimate and collective. A place of socio-political inscription, where history is contested and fantasies are established, as well as, time and temporality in relation to childhood transitions, to maturity, self-representation, memory, experiences and personal geographies, ” as stated in the curatorial note.

In the Luanda edition, Being Her(e) showcases more than 20 selected works that are described as being, “both in isolation and in dialogue with each other, confronting, contextualizing, question and redefining historical and contemporary notions of what it means to be a female body in Africa and in the African diaspora. Questioning preconceived ideas about femininity, while suggesting a broader reflection on the elusice theme of identity and its various forms of representation. ”

With Being Her(e), curators Paula Nascimento and Violet Nantume not only respond to the recently past 2017 exhibition Being Her(e): Meditations on African Feminities but also continue the dialogue begun in Pretoria, South Africa in 2015 with Being and Becoming: Complexities of the African Identity, an exhibition that sought to raise questions about the various layers of African identity and the urgency of forging new, unorthodox ways of seeing and being African.

The Angola iteration of the project asides from its key partners also enjoys the kind support of the National Arts Council of South Africa, This is Not a White Cube (TINAWC), Prohelvetia and the Swiss Development Corporation and a number of other Angolan sponsors.

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