Women on Aeroplanes

What makes it possible for certain individuals’ stories to prevail, while others remain invisible, or disappear into oblivion? What are the intricacies of institutional or structural erasure? And how does the unveiling of such silenced narratives contribute to collective thinking?

The Showroom and The Otolith Collective will raise these questions in a curatorial format in the London iteration of Women on Aeroplanes – an international multi-part research and exhibition project, which loosely borrows its title from the novel by Ghanaian writer Kojo Laing, and its ethos from his implosive deconstructed syntax.
The project will include new work by artists Lungiswa Gqunta, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa, and will observe the largely unrecognised role of women in struggles for liberation, their participation in transatlantic networks, and their key voices in revolutionary socio-political movements that helped to achieve post-colonial nation-states in Africa.

Curated by Emily Pethick and Elvira Dyangani Ose with The Otolith Collective (Kodwo Eshun, Anjalika Sagar and Hannah Liley).

Women on Aeroplanes forms part of an international project of the same name curated by Annett Busch, Marie-Hélène Gutberlet and Magda Lipska, co-produced by Iwalewahaus, University of Bayreuth and funded by the TURN Fund of the German Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes). In collaboration with The Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA, Lagos), ifa Gallery Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, The Showroom and The Otolith Collective, London.
The project at The Showroom is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, and by the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Opening: Tuesday 2 October 2018, 6.30–8.30pm

www.theshowroom.org