The exhibition and its complementary cultural programme explores themes of visibility, a safe passage and creating a homecoming away from home that welcomes diverse identities from across Africa to commune and coexist under one roof in Cape Town.
The experimental visual exploration is an immersive salon of contemporary art and heritage by curators Beathur Mgoza Baker and Sara Bint Moneer Khan to negate cultural invisibility and silencing. It is inspired by the legacy of District Six as a place of memory and convergence where diverse cultures could coexist and truly belong.
Salon Afrique uses the stunning landscape of Cape Town as a canvas to welcome people to engage in an immersive visual art programme that allows us to reflect back on history and the knowledge learned, while simultaneously looking forward with optimism.
Salon Africa aspires to reflect the voices of South African and pan-African artists united in their capacity to celebrate Africa and our position in the world through a deeper investigation of memory, cultural identity, and lived experiences that the artworks portray.
Baker and Khan decided to create a space of affirmation, belonging, and pride. Both are independent curators renowned globally for their critical engagement with topics of identity, belonging, and memory, as well as curating the body and decolonial contemporary art practice.
Their individual and combined work and ideas reflect the contemporary moment in art, critical thought, the complexity of identity, gender, geopolitics, public culture, and heritage that responds with great resonance to that of the District Six museum and Homecoming Centre. Individually both curators are involved in establishing physical and intellectual space for examining critical themes around belonging, memory, and cultural representation on the African continent, in the global South, and globally.
Artists participating include Segun Aiyesan, Imraan Christian, Zanele Muholi, Haroon Gunn Salie, George Hallet, Timi Kakandar, David Chinyama, Skumbuzo Vabaza, Thania Petersen, Hasan Essop, Omar Badsha, Husein Essop, King Debs and more.
The exhibition opens for the public on 2 June at 6pm at The Homecoming Centre, 15A Buitekant Street, Cape Town.
