Saturday 15th September, 3pm
Fòcas Scotland – Body of Land Programme
Black Female Identity & The African Spirit
Sekai Machache (artist) and Awuor Onyango (artist), moderated by Alberta Whittle, artist, writer and educator.
Join artists Awuor Onyango (Kenya) and Sekai Machache (Scotland) at 3pm on Saturday 15th September at Street Level Photoworks to explore their collaboration Body of Land. From dances of death to ancient burial rites to Bruja – witches or healers – in the digital world, see their work to date and get an insight into their working process and what they have in store for us as part of Fòcas: Body of Land in 2019.
Body of Land is a new Art new Audiences (nAnA) grantee, supported through the British Council’s East Africa Arts programme. Produced by Fòcas Scotland and supported by Street Level Photoworks. Body of Land is a collaborative residency exchange between Scottish-Zimbabwean artist Sekai Machache and Kenyan artist Awuor Onyango.
More Information: Fòcas Scotland
Bios
Sekai Machache (b.1989) is based in Dundee, Scotland. Her work is a deep interrogation of the notion of self. Having been born in Zimbabwe and raised in Scotland, she has a particular interest in W.E.B Dubois’ notion of Double Consciousness, which expresses the psychological challenge of having African heritage whilst living in the West. Working in a multi-disciplinary practice, Sekai works with a wide range of media including but not exclusive to photography. Her photographic practice is mostly formulated through digital studio based compositions utilising body paint and muted lighting conditions, to create images that appear to emerge from darkness. Sekai is founding member of the Yon Afro Collective (YAC) in Scotland.
Awuor Onyango (b.1990) is a writer, artist, filmmaker and photographer based in the pagan citadel of Nairobi in neo-colonial Kenya. Her practice is concerned with exploring politics of the personal, body and the self as art. Her interests include exploring the black African feminine, the gendered leanings of society, the archetypes and psycho-social role of the queer and various socio-cultural implications of “African-ness”. Her aim is to question the colonial, the religious and the “globalized” view of the African as believed by the African, the African diaspora and the colonialist and his kin. Her approach is experimental and often results in mixed media pieces and film and photo-based installations.
Alberta Whittle is a Committee member of Transmission Gallery and a Board Member at SCAN (Scottish Visual Arts Network). Developing interactive installations as site-specific artworks in public and private spaces, her research seeks to encourage linkages between active collective unknowing/unlearning history and memory. Alberta has shared her work in various solo and group shows, including at the Johannesburg Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (Venice),The Showroom (London), FRAMER FRAMED (Amsterdam), Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) and David Dale Gallery (Glasgow), BOZAR (Brussels), RAW Material (Dakar), National Art Gallery (Nassau) and at the Apartheid Museum, Goethe On Main and Constitution Hill (Johannesburg). She will be showing at the 13th Havana Biennal, (DCA) Dundee Contemporary Art and presenting her collaborative performance-led research Right of Admission with Farieda Nazier as a retrospective exhibition at The University of Johannesburg Gallery in 2019. Alberta is also the 2018 recipient of The Margaret Tait Award.
Banner Image: © Sekai Machache
Left Image: © Awuor Onyango
