Original Story Published by: Amy Gibbings for Art Africa
Irish-Trinidadian artist, Zak Ové, challenges the clichéd notions projected onto Africa in his latest exhibition Star Liner – redefining Western idealism’s of Africa and her diaspora and suggesting a journey into a new dimension for African identity.
“If all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, animals and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and Aids, unable to speak for themselves.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Since the first settler stepped ashore, the African continent has been subject to violent exploitation, gross misrepresentation and contemptuously drained of her independence. Her people were traded, enslaved and sent to distant lands, and still today she is envisioned and appropriated through the lens of an ‘outside’ world, foreign to her own.
Today we see a renegotiation in what Africa and her diaspora are tolerating in the areas of cultural appropriation, white privilege and systematic racism – initiatives like Black Lives Matter, popular discourse surrounding decolonisation and a demand for equal representation are but a few examples of a clear shift in political consciousness. It’s from the outside that Irish-Trinidadian visual artist, Zak Ové, challenges clichéd notions of the continent and suggests an infinite scope for bold redefinition of the African identity.
Zak Ové, Resistor Transistors 2, 2017, Fibre glass, flocked, resin, 35 x 65 x 20 cm.
© Lawrie Shabibi and the artist.
