Reshape 22 | Future Art Histories

Latitudes Online and ANNA Pure Organic present a group show featuring 60 women artists. 

Reshape 22 is an annual, online survey exhibition that seeks to augment the visibility of contemporary women-identifying artists in Africa. The group show, which features works by 60 artists, aims to highlight powerful women-identifying voices on the continent and empower a collective whose narrative has been underplayed and neglected throughout history, all while still taking intersectional theory into consideration. 

Reshape 22 envisions a more comprehensive and inclusive art canon for future generations. The exhibition aims to highlight a contemporary view of female-identifying practices that is not based on any single narrative of womanhood, but rather explores the vital contributions of women making art, in relation to the compelling issues that define our times

Reshape probes what unites the artists by evaluating similarities in their practices and identifying five themes that are prevalent in their work at this current moment. Our 2022 themes are: 

Materiality covers a broad range of artists, where the materials of their artwork strongly influence and inform their meaning. This theme also draws near to and focuses on the process in which the works are made, and how the softness of materials, processes and creative expression filter into the emotive response we feel as the viewer. 

Portraiture offers a space of self-defined identity and representation, whether that be self-portraiture or stories of womanhood told by women. 

The Female Gaze offers a reclamation of power (seen through composition, subject matter and direct eye contact) by women. This theme also touches on spaces where women are still at the mercy of traditional power structures and bodily violences too. 

Nature and sustainability centres around works that pertain to the environment, environmental changes, to the cyclical nature of birth and decay as well as works that are organic in their subject matter or materiality. 

The Body as a Vessel references works associated with the female form and is a soft play of the relation between nature and the body. The body as a vessel also relates strongly to womanhood as sexuality, from the making and birthing of children, and the strong intergenerational connection between mother and daughter. 

Reshape 22 runs on Latitudes Online from 14 September to 14 October. The show is presented by Latitudes Online and ANNA Pure Organic.