Illuminated by colored beams of light, objects from diverse cultural traditions shine together, blending in order to then shine anew via the intertwined textures and structures. Athena has returned to Africa after traveling through deserts and beaches all over the world. At the beginning of the story, she departed from the plateaus of East Africa and visited the entire continent. Walking along the waters of the Nile, which runs along the edge of the desert, she became Isis, mother of the shining Horus, the color of ebony.

Beyond the borders of the Egyptian Empire, in the Aegean Sea, she took the form of a white virgin. Born from Zeus’s mind, she gave Europe the gifts of philosophy and the arts.

Today Africa shows Europeans what she removed. The African continent speaks a language both ancient and new. The human species began in Africa and art was born in Africa as well, its first traces carved into the stone. The course of history has since been cruel towards Mother Earth, but today the meeting of the cultures has led to new possibilities for civility. The Western art world has been watching Africa and the rest since 1987, when the scholar Martin Bernal published “Black Athena”. After this study, no one doubts that the civilization of the West relies upon a densely interwoven exchange with the oldest African civilizations. The time in which we are living moves along surrounded by the phenomena of globalization, migration, and cultural contamination. Africa and the West have already woven together many of their perspectives, each region giving life to cultural phenomena in which traces of the other are undeniably visible. The power of art expresses itself here by giving artists the capacity to interpret their own times as they produce innovative processes and original shapes in the creative dimension, drawing their strength from awareness of their roots. Plots and figures from various origins participate in the fusion of different traditions. With these intertwined cultures we have discovered universal experiences by valuing rhythm, the body, symbols, gifts, games, and food.

In something of a metaphor of light, the white passing through the prism is transformed into a differentiated color spectrum before turning back into black, the color from which all originated. The objects from diverse cultural traditions are illuminated by colored rays of light. Together they shine, blending together to be redistributed in new combinations, textures, and structures.

Artists on display:
Willie Bester
Studio Bobson
Conrad Botes
Zwelethu Mthethwa
Jackson Nkumanda