Study event: Body of Land *cancelled*

Please note owing to Covid-19 all face to face activities are currently suspended. We hope to replace events with virtual options where possible, please continue to check the #WeAreOCA blog space and student discuss forum.

Body of Land is an intimate exploration of African diasporic femininities, featuring photography and installation-based work by artists Awuor Onyango (Kenya) and Sekai Machache (Scotland) who collaborated in a yearlong residency across Scotland and Kenya. 

Funded by British Council East Africa’s New Art New Audiences Programme, Body of Land was produced and facilitated by Fòcas Scotland and is supported by Street Level Photoworks and British Council Scotland. 

Both Onyango and Machache worked together in two residency phases, one in Scotland at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow and one in Kenya at the Kuona Trust, Nairobi creating new bodies of work collaborating with women of African diaspora in Scotland. Body of Land explores what binds and splits the body, spirit, land and social self across contemporary African femininities that are at once rooted and displaced. 

OCA Tutor Arpita Shah will be facilitating this event and will be able to offer a very unique insight into the exhibition. Through her role as Fòcas Scotland’s creative director she has work directly with both artists for this exhibition and as a practicing photographer herself, her own work and research centres around the politics of representation, race and identity which she’ll discuss in the context of this exhibition.  You will also have the opportunity to hear both exhibiting artists discuss their projects from 1-2pm as part of Street Level Photoworks public artists talk event.  

The exhibition combines photography with installation, and both artists have used fabric and elements of performance to explore the identities of the black feminine divine, which they both evoke and invite through their work.  

This study event is open to students of photography and students across all disciplines, particularly those who are interested in representation, race and identity, African diaspora and mythology, artists that work with textiles and fabrics and all mixed media artists. 

Study event details

Body of Land Exhibition tour & exhibiting artist’s talk

Artists: Awuor Onyango & Sekai Machache 

Venue: Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow

Date: Sat 25 April 

Time: Noon – 2.30pm (artists talk 1pm – 2pm)

Tutor: Arpita Shah 

Images:

From the series ‘Ritual Manifestations’ © Sekai Machache

From the series ‘Ritual Manifestations’ © Sekai Machache

From the series ‘Memoritual’ © Awuor Onyango