The Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA, Lagos), founded by Bisi Silva – is pleased to announce ‘Passengers in Transit’, an exhibition bringing together five Afrodescent female artists from Africa, the Caribbean and the USA, as a Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
© Joanna Choumali
The selected artists’ interdisciplinary practices explore the convergence between identity, gender, memory, and place. Navigating between history and fiction, working from and within archives, the artists reflect upon the representation of black bodies within the contemporary world and speculate on possible futures. April Bey, Christa David, Euridice Zaituna Kala, Joana Choumali and Thandiwe Muriu create a conversation around belonging, identity construction and the complexity of cross-cultural existence. The project reflects different perspectives and explores diverse ways of thinking about human subjectivity, language, and foreignness in dialogue with Biennale Arte 2024’s central theme, “Stranieri Ovunque Foreigners Everywhere”.
‘Passengers in Transit’ takes its title from the homonymous storybook by Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa. The disconnected stories in which the characters travel in different settings transport us from one place to another to discover the world. This restlessness of diverse latitudes, the nostalgia of the “leaving”, and the search for “who we really are” reflect on the strain of being foreign within a global society and the subjective forces that amplify this feeling, both individually and collectively.
At a time when humanity faces several challenges, such as increased discrimination, global warming, and wars, and a moment when the individual is often more important than the collective, the concept of being a foreigner brings forward political, ideological, religious, and other motivations. It opens up a broad spectrum of meaningful discussions about identity and belonging. Therefore, how this concept is understood depends on who is speaking and from where – who is foreign concerning whom? Who has the power to decide who is a foreigner? Foreigner concerning what?
Something about the other remains beyond the self’s grasp — alterity— is a construction and form of relationship that demands acknowledgement of each other’s singularities and respect[1]. The difficulty in grasping the strangeness of others is inherent in human beings. Identity, which makes the other unique or specific – eludes analysis. It is under construction, a constant process of becoming.
Yet this difficulty in grasping the strangeness of others opens up a space for recognising the difference and understanding otherness. Inspired by the philosophical and humanising proposal by Levinas and Waldernfels and from Edouard Glissant’s right to opacity, the project’ Passengers in transit’ invites us to reflect on the endless journey that leads us to find who we are as essentially social beings.
The five selected artists’ interdisciplinary practices explore the convergence between identity, gender, memory, and place. Navigating between history and fiction, working from and within archives, the artists reflect upon the representation of black (female) bodies within the contemporary world and speculate on possible futures.
Joana Choumali, April Bey, Thandiwe Muriu, Christa David, and Euridice Zaituna Kala propose a conversation around belonging and identity construction and about accepting the unintelligibility, impenetrability and complexity that characterises cross-cultural existence as opposed to the normalising, reducing, and even assimilating the singularities of cultural difference.
The project reflects different perspectives and explores diverse ways of thinking about human subjectivity, language, and politics in dialogue with the Biennial “Foreigners Everywhere” theme.
‘Passengers in Transit’ is curated by Paula Nascimento, Oyindamola Faithful and Roger Niyigena Karera. The exhibition is hosted and supported by 193 Gallery at the Ex-Farmacia Solveni, Dorsoduro 993-994. The exhibition is on view from the 20th of April until the 20th of November, 2024. For more information, please visit 193 Gallery and CCA Lagos.
