The month of May is a time for us to reflect on the
meaning of Africa Day which was created 59 years ago with the founding of the
Organisation of African Union (OAU) now referred to as the Africa Union (AU). In recognition of this day Javett-UP invites
the public to come engage with our new curatorial project SCENORAMA and
reflect on the life and work of the late Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina who died on the 21st of May 2019. Wainaina
influenced a generation of writers from the continent and became one of the
most critical voices in how the continent is represented by western media. In 2015,
after publicly coming out as gay on his 40th birthday, Wainaina concluded
‘We cannot think of our continent as a hostile
place. Too many of us have learnt to fear it. And I feel that if you trust it,
engage with it and be involved with it in conversations of building, as
adventurers, that this continent will start to sing to us again.’ SCENORAMA is
an experimental curatorial adventure that features artists that are committed in
creating vocabularies that show how we are connected through a network of belief systems, historical narratives and sonic
interpretations. SCENORAMA is in conversation with other collections exhibited
at the Javett-UP with some of the artists actively thinking about local museums
and collections and their place in the ever changing world. SCENORAMA
includes work by Amanda Mushate, Manyaku Mashilo, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Nyakallo
Maleke, Thierry Oussou and Paulo Nazareth. The full programme of the day will
be announced through our social media channels.
