Curator:
Azu Ngwagbogu
Assistant Curators:
Precious Mhone
Gcotyelwa Mashiqa
Chapter 1 artists: Chapter 2 artists:
Aristotle Roufanis Atang Tshikare
Atang Tshikare Caitlin Warther & Wendy Dixon
Cassandra Klos Gerald Machona
Cristina de Middel Jake Michael Singer
Daniel Obasi Kiluanji Kia Henda
Gerald Machona Kyu Sang Lee & Martin Wilson
Kadara Enyeasi Maurice Mbikayi and Nicole Holgate
Katharien de Villiers Michael McGarry
Kathy Robins Neo Matloga
Kumasi J. Barnett Onyis Martin
Liona R. Nyariri Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum
Loyiso Mkize Ralph Borland
Michael MacGarry Rashid Johnson
MÅ©chiri Njenga Robert A. Pruitt
Ndiaye Abdoulaye Robin Rhode
Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi Sory Sanlé
Osborne Macharia Sue Williamson
Yinka Shonibare CBE
Wanuri Kahiu
Willie Bester
This cosmic dance of bursting decadence and withheld permissions twists all our arms collectively, but if sweetness can win, and it can, then I’ll still be here tomorrow to high-five you yesterday, my friend. Peace.
– Pendleton Ward, Adventure Time Vol. 1
Still Here Tomorrow to High Five You Yesterday…, an exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA, explores the different ways in which artists, performers, writers and architects tackle the complexities inherent within the dual concepts of Utopia and progress. Exploring emergent spaces that exist both in the realm of the mind and in the physical unknown, the exhibition points critically to the mirages, metaphors, stereotypes and matrixes of progress.
Through the works of contemporary artists from Africa and its diaspora, the exhibition engages with the phenomenon of travel and migration through imagined, alternative realities that reference both fixed and immaterial locations.
Musician Sun Ra speaks of ‘unknown things, impossible things, ancient things and potential things’. In this way, the exhibition enters alternative stratospheres, allowing viewers to explore the ‘multiple simultaneous utopianisms’ (Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum) that inhabit our perceptions and worlds.
The artists in this exhibition propose many different concepts of time, a time that is no longer linear but cyclical, inter-dimensional and experiential. The artworks suggest an infinite realm of potential transformation – where past, present and future collapse into one. Evoking a place yet-to-be-known, the exhibition challenges the idea that utopia is synonymous with escapist pursuits. Instead, the works of the artists on exhibition offer a poetic critique of the norms of existing societies.
Born from notions of space travel and the tropes of Afro-futurist movements, the exhibition is conceived in chapters that unfold and progress presenting a plurality of post-colonial futures. In this way, the exhibition shapes and shifts in the gallery, disrupting and distorting the constructs of utopia and its opposite: dystopia, encouraging more nuanced perspectives on our shared futures.
Looking at the works of multiple artists, Chapter 2 provides an opportunity to re-read, re-examine and consider our relationship to time and space.
It seeks to interrogate alternative physical and metaphorical spaces, letting viewers explore imagined worlds, past spaces and potential future outcomes.
Presenting a plurality of postcolonial futures, Still here tomorrow to high five you yesterday… shapes and shifts within the gallery space, prompting more nuanced perspectives on progression and multiple readings of its themes.
Chapter 1 closes on 23 August and Chapter 2 closes on 22 September 2019.
Explore Chapter 1 in 3D below:
Explore Chapter 2 in 3D below: