31Project, Paris, France
02 Apr 2022 - 14 May 2022
Hakeem Adam, Nkrumah Never Dies!, (Detail) 2018, impression pigmentaire, Edition de 5. © Hakeem Adam
The group exhibition Je suis moi-même le soIeil (I, Myself, Am the sun) brings together five visual artists from Africa and its diaspora. The works of Leonard Pongo, Nú Barreto M’Barka Amor, Hakeem Adam, Valerie Asiimwe Amani reflect upon the meaning of Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène’s famous words.
« Europe is not my center […] Why should I be a sunflower and revolve around the sun? I, Myself, Am the sun »
Where and what is our center when we exist at the intersection of different time spaces and realities? How to rethink geographies and overlay cosmogonies to create a new diasporic reality?
When Ousmane Sembène boasts himself about being the sun, he radiates with his words and gives a license to be free to a whole generation of artists from the Souths. This group exhibition exposes those gazes that claim to prevail to the inexorable transformation of our contemporary societies. This exhibition allows everyone to redefine their place and therefore their center.
