Stunning visual ode to Womanhood at the Gallery of African Art
The exhibition “Sisterhood That Transcends” at the Gallery of African Art in London has been extended until November 23rd. It is a stunning series of visual short stories of womanhood opening a dialogue between the latest body of work of the Nigerian artist Rewa and the “African-focus” photographer Dagmar Van Weeghel.
In parts of Africa, the birth of a child is celebrated at the child’s naming ceremony. While the particulars of the ceremony vary by region and ethnic groups, the ceremony itself remains a crucial rite of passage for both the child, the parents and by and large the community. The function of the name is not merely to identify the newborn; it indicates the circumstances surrounding its conception and birth. The name also expresses the hopes of the community in this new life and helps mold, to some extend the trajectory of a life yet to be lived.
The Nigerian artist Rewa, drawing on Nigerian tradition, has breathed a visual life into a collection of names for her series Onicha Ado N’Idu (Naming Rites & Traditions of the Igbos of Nigeria). She turns each name into a vibrant, pop portrait of a woman, making her latest artworks a series of ten short visual stories. Almost like an invocation, she gives a visual meaning to ‘Nwabundo’, my child is my shelter and protection or ‘Somadina’, I am not alone in the physical and spiritual world.
This series follows her Pantheon series dedicated to Nigerian goddesses. As she said herself [her] “Subject matter is Woman”. The women she depicts are deeply rooted, through their names, into their culture and appear to be in dialogue with those photographed by Dagmar Van Weeghel.
In the first series exhibited, Mombasa Blues, the photographer evokes, through a series of haunting pictures, the identity struggles of those caught between two cultures and who are “too foreign for home & too foreign for here”.
In her second series, Yelema (“change’ or ‘transformation’ in Mandika), her luminous pictures explore the themes of sisterhood and transformation.
Although created separately, there is an interplay between each body of work that together form a superb narrative that celebrates womanhood in its various forms and complexities.
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