Synchronicity II presents work by nine artists from Africa and its diaspora – most of whom are showing in
London for the first time – which is rooted in contemporary creativity in a global context. Like the
experience of synchronicity in psychoanalysis, their artistic practices capture the spirit of the moment,
connected on one hand yet individual on the other. A version of facts in one place also has its principle of
equivalence on the other side of the planet. In Swahili, DUNI NI MAPISHANO means ‘The World is Made
of Differences’ invoking a situation in which translations are not only possible but respectful of difference
and specificities. Synchronicity attempts to make visible these interdependencies as much as its
independences, allowing for multiple readings in which limits are difficult to perceive. These issues are
implicit in the work presented and rendered across a variety of media including photography, video
installation, and sound.
Malala Andrialavidrazana’s Ny Any Aminay (2011) reveals people’s intimate spaces in Madagascar. James
Barnor’s extraordinary photographic archives (1950’s-70’s) plunge us back to the period of postindependence in Ghana as well as to the multicultural London of the 1960’s. Martiniquian Steeve Bauras
integrates his black and white photographs into a three-dimensional construction: beyond P, Chile, (2006-
2009). François-Xavier Gbré manifests a formal and pictorial approach in the work Tracks (2010) which
focuses on the imprint of time on architecture. In the form of parodies, Em’Kal’s photographic series Rio
dos Camarões (2009) and Grace Ndiritu’s video To Africanize Is to Civilize (2003) manipulates symbols of
colonial past. Kapwani Kiwanga presents Tongue, (2007) a sound piece that documents a Swahili lesson
between a brother and a sister. Unkempt moments dedicated to martyrs and political commemoration
steles in public spaces in Algeria are recordings with a dose of irony by Amina Menia in her installation
Chrysanthemums (2010-2011). In Ecstatics (2009-2010), Abraham Oghobase’s performative photographic
series, questions the place of an individual in a metropolis like Lagos.
Synchronicity I was co-curated by Elise Atangana, Nathalie Belayche, Yves Chatap and Caroline Hancock
at the galerie baudoin lebon in Paris (September – November 2011) in parallel of Photoquai Biennale.
www.baudoin-lebon.com
Synchronicity II will run from 3 February 2012 – 17 March 2012 at Tiwani Contemporary. The Directors
Ayo Adeyinka, Jude Cesar and Maria Varnava as well as members of the curatorial collective On the Roof,
Elise Atangana, Yves Chatap and Caroline Hancock and curatorial advisor Bisi Silva invite you to join
them at the opening of Synchronicity II in the presence of some of the participating artists.
2 February from 6:00-9:00 at Tiwani Contemporary,
16 Little Portland Street,
London, W1W 8BP
