April 4 – May 11
Reflections in Exile: Five Contemporary African Artists Respond to Social Injustice
Ilona Anderson, Khalid Kodi, Chas Maviyane-Davies, Salem Mekuria, Ezra Wube
April 4, OPENING RECEPTION, 6–8 pm • Gallery Hours: Mon–Sat 10–4, Sun 12–4
Catalog: Preface—Edmund Barry Gaither, Introduction—Candice Smith Corby

Ilona Anderson
Forced Removal

Ilona Anderson works in painting, installation, and drawing in thread (embroidery). She is a South African artist who came to Boston on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1988. She received her MFA from the Museum School/Tufts University (’90). Most recently she showed at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, and at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum in South Africa. Her exhibition, “Trace Elements,” which was installed at the NESAD Gallery, Boston, explored issues of domesticity and violence in South Africa. In addition to the Fulbright, she has been a recipient of grants from the Berkshire Taconic Trust, the Artist Fellowship, and the St. Botolph Club Foundation. Anderson has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University for many years. She currently teaches advanced painting and drawing.

Khalid Kodi
Violence Inscribed

“My latest work is political, social and personal. One of the main motivations in my current installation work is to inform the international community, through visual art, about several issues confronting African societies and Sudanese societies in particular. Several themes represented include post-colonial political experience (e.g., internal colonialism and dictatorship), man-made famine, genocide, slavery, gender struggle, religious dogma and oppression, tribalism, and resistance to change.”

The installation, by Khalid Kodi, is dedicated to Hawa Haggam a woman from Darfur, whose six children were killed by the Janjawid militias, and as a result, she lost the ability to walk and to speak. Her story has been documented by Al-Arabia TV. In the past three years, over 200,000 innocent civilians were killed in Darfur. Over two million were displaced by the war, thousands of women were raped and hundreds of villages were burned down.

Award-winning Khalid Kodi is a painter, sculptor, installation and environmental artist with an international reputation. Kodi’s work is well
respected in every genre he chooses as a means of expression, including installations which are sometimes startling but clearly communicate the horror of the on-going tragedy in his homeland, Sudan. His art is often political, yet hopeful, as he records the mundane moments when we may simply enjoy each other’s company despite the cruelties that would force us to live in fear.Still, Kodi forces us to consider the alternatives to that which is serene. “By not looking, we abandon the child, the man, the woman and indeed, the nation. It’s like the Nazis in the 30s and 40s; people knew what was going on but they didn’t speak out. By being quiet, they’re contributing to genocide, and I have no problem calling it that.”

Flag, 2000
Rights, Article 15, 1996
DRC, 2000
Our Fear, 2002
Beware of Some Masks, 2000

For more than two decades Chaz Maviyane-Davies work has addressed issues of consumerism, health, nutrition, social responsibility, the environment and human rights. His education includes an MA in Graphic Design (with distinction) from the Central School of Art and Design in London, and an Advanced Diploma in Postgraduate Filmmaking from the Central St. Martins School of Art and Design London. He is presently Professor of Design at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.

Maviyane-Davies spent a year in Japan studying three-dimensional design and a total of ten months in Malaysia working on various world-reaching design projects for the International Organization of Consumers Unions and JUST World Trust. His design work experience in London includes time with Fulcrum Design, Newell and Sorrell Design Ltd., as well as a stint in the Department of Graphic Design of BBC Television.

From 1983 until 2000 he was the principal of The Maviyane-Project, a design studio in Harare. As a result of the social, humane and confrontational nature of his work, he felt compelled to temporarily leave Zimbabwe because of the adverse political climate there.

In 2003 he was recognized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with an award for outstanding commitment to the struggle to transform society and create a just future. He received another recognition award from Simmons College, Boston for courage and integrity in stimulating activism for social change. He was also Honour Laureate at the 13th Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition. In 2004 he gave the prestigious Dwiggins lecture, sponsored by the Society of Printers and the Boston Public Library and he also became the first recipient of the Anthon Beeke International Design Award in Amsterdam. Besides extensive individual and group exhibitions worldwide, his design work has been represented in most of the largest international graphic, invitational and poster exhibitions from 1980 to the present time.

Salem Mekuria
Ruptures, 2007
Video Installation

PERSONAL STATEMENT ON FILMS ABOUT ETHIOPIA
“My recent work re-contextualizes Ethiopia’s complex history and culture by critiquing prevailing tendencies that misrepresent its political or economic realities.“

Ruptures juxtaposes events and images against each other creating new paths for interpreting this complex period in Ethiopian history. Ruptures is a portrait of a present of disorderly existence, a mirror of unresolved pasts and a meditation on an ambivalent future.

Salem Mekuria is an independent film producer, writer, director and video installation artist. She is an Associate Professor of Art at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. For a number of years she worked with NOVA, Public Television’s premier science documentary series, a production of WGBH-TV, and with numerous international film productions focusing on issues of African women and development. Salem Mekuria is the recipient of: Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 2005-06; Fulbright Scholar award, 2003-04; The New England Media Fellowship, 2001; the Rockefeller Foundation’s Intercultural Media Fellowship, 1995; Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest International Artists Residency Fellowship in 1993; a fellowship at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, Harvard University, 1990-92; the Massachusetts Artists Foundation Award in 1991.

Ezra Wube
Blue Battle, 2005–2006, o/c, 10" x 10"
Open, 2006–2007, m/m
Exodus, 2004–2007, o/c, 16" x 45"
Twin, 2006–2007, m/m, 8" x 48"
Follow, 2006–2007, o/c, 8" x 48"

Ezra Wube was born and raised in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. He came to the United States at the age of 18. Currently, Ezra resides in Brooklyn, New York, working on his MFA at Hunter College. The underlying themes in his paintings are exile and identity. “I refer to Ethiopian history as well as current social and political tensions. My videos address similar concepts, with less historical reference.”

“I come from Ethiopia. My work is inspired by Ethiopian folk tales which make a social, political and spiritual commentary and reflect on the many diverse and ancient cultures of Ethiopia. Their symbolic messages are universal and I apply their lessons to my daily life here in the West. After graduating from the Massachusetts College of Art, I received a fellowship to travel throughout Ethiopia and collect folk tales. It took a four-month journey for me to gather over 100 stories. I use different mediums that support their themes: coffee, pages of historical books, origami paper, linen, wood, and oil paints. Many of these tales are at risk of being lost for good as indigenous groups throughout the country succumb to the forces of globalization. As an artist, I feel it is my responsibility to preserve these stories.”