Kuandika

As I sat with my friend at the final talk that we were attending for the day, looking ahead at the panel of 4 women discussing their creative practices, it suddenly dawned on me that all of the talks that we had attended today had been facilitated by African women . As a take home message for me, that was exciting and significant; hearing about art and ideas coming from the continent and its diaspora through the voices of African women so often left out of the dialogues that take place. I listened, I took notes, I soaked up the atmosphere, and I fed on the information presented to me. I was eager to hear, and eager to learn. The first talk I attended drew me in and captivated me, I think it was the youthful energy of the two speakers (Kiran Yoliswa and Alae Ismail who collectively are known as Styled By Africa ). They carried the audience into their world of African design, cuisine, music and media. I learnt many a new thing, and my friend and I nodded and ‘ mmmhmmd’ as we l...

Chiharu Shiota is a Japanese artist who now lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Her work is on show at The New Art Gallery Walsall until 30 th March. She has a variety of work on show including two site specific installation works which are the focus of this post. Henry Giroux (2005) in his book Border Crossings talked of people in the 21 st century occupying ‘multiple, contradictory, and complex subject positions…within different social, cultural and economic locations’ (Giroux 2005:13). It could be said that the work of Chiharu Shiota allows the exploration of such positions. Through her work we travel to and occupy a range of social and cultural spaces, we are able to connect with unknown people from various locations, whose stories we may see in the gallery, but yet somehow we can never fully understand or be a part of.  Shiota’s work has journeyed from a far and permitted us the opportunity to navigate within and to temporarily cross boundaries and b...

Image from the  Saddam is Here’  series - taken from the Ikon gallery website The Ikon Gallery in Birmingham is celebrating its 50th anniversary during 2014-2015, and as part of the celebrations there are some exciting and interesting exhibitions coming up throughout the year. So over the weekend I made my way over to the Ikon to see what was on offer, what I found was Iraqi-Kurdish artist Jamal Penjweny's exhibition ‘Saddam is Here’.   Penjweny’s exhibition was a fascinating insight into the lives of Iraqi people that goes beyond the usual war images that have constantly bombarded our screens and newspapers over the years. Penjweny depicts the realities of the average Iraqi person’s life through the art of photography and film. The presence of Saddam Hussein in Iraqi society is a subject matter that Penjweny is particular drawn to, hence the exhibition title. He cleverly explores this through photographs taken of Iraqi people going about their daily li...