Inheritance: Recent Video Art from Africa

February 17–July 28, 2019

This exhibition features video works by contemporary African artists who are contending with inherited political, social, and environmental realities in their respective countries. Artists Kudzanai Chiurai (b. 1981, Zimbabwe), Zina Saro-Wiwa (b. 1976, Nigeria), and Mikhael Subotzky (b. 1981, South Africa) grapple with the ramifications of colonial legacies. Though belonging to the same post-independence generation, their disparate backgrounds result in three starkly different viewpoints on what the future holds. Chiurai’s We Live in Silence seeks to create new myths and histories as a means of creating a path forward; Saro-Wiwa’s Table Manners focuses on environmental degradation in the region of her birth and promotes healing through the act of eating local foods; and Subotsky’s WYE questions white complicity in the many failures of post-Apartheid South Africa.

Inheritance: Recent Video Art from Africa is organized by the Fowler Museum at UCLA and is curated by Erica P. Jones, Associate Curator of African Arts. The exhibition is made possible by major support from the Philip L. Ravenhill Endowed Fund as well as generous funding from the Fowler Contemporary Council, Andrew Adelson, Arthur Lewis and Hau Nguyen, Azita and George Fatheree, Jay Geller and Lowell Gallagher, and Saundra Lang.

—

Parking available in UCLA Lot 4, 398 Westwood Plaza, directly off Sunset Blvd | $12/day. Rideshare drop-off 305 Royce Drive.

PRESS RELEASE: Inheritance: Recent Video Art from Africa

Video

View the exhibition trailer

Music credit: “Switchin’ Lanes” by Yung Kartz