Featuring the work of Chuma Adam, Boemo Diale, Anna van der Ploeg, Bongani Tshabalala, Nkhensani Mkhari and Mandisa Buthelezi, Gibela is a group show which meditates on the idea of cultural consciousness, as a means to cultivate safe space for the existence of diverse cultural and ontological perspectives, especially those that exist outside dominant forms of culture perceived as universal.
We’re contemplating the application of seemingly universal epistemologies to specific cultural contexts — think of the imposition of Modernist principles in a Bantu homeland, or inversely, uMaskandi being consumed in a gallery. This results in a matrix of references that might exist on a spectrum between ‘the regional’ and ‘the universal’, cultivating a consciousness of culture rooted in the South African context but informed by a global ontology.
This celebration of difference is an expression of a desire to disengage with western hegemony expressed through universalistic claims to validity, and a strand of decolonial thought, which as Ramón Grosfoguel suggests, projects a “pluriversal as opposed to a universal world”.
This show runs from 19 February - 12 April 2025.
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Gibela
Featuring the work of Chuma Adam, Boemo Diale, Anna van der Ploeg, Bongani Tshabalala, Nkhensani Mkhari and Mandisa Buthelezi, Gibela is a group show which meditates on the idea of cultural consciousness, as a means to cultivate safe space for the existence of diverse cultural and ontological perspectives, especially those that exist outside dominant forms of culture perceived as universal.
We’re contemplating the application of seemingly universal epistemologies to specific cultural contexts — think of the imposition of Modernist principles in a Bantu homeland, or inversely, uMaskandi being consumed in a gallery. This results in a matrix of references that might exist on a spectrum between ‘the regional’ and ‘the universal’, cultivating a consciousness of culture rooted in the South African context but informed by a global ontology.
This celebration of difference is an expression of a desire to disengage with western hegemony expressed through universalistic claims to validity, and a strand of decolonial thought, which as Ramón Grosfoguel suggests, projects a “pluriversal as opposed to a universal world”.
