WHERE WE’RE AT! Other Voices on Gender

WHERE WE’RE AT! Other voices on gender was an exhibition of the Summer of Photography 2014 themed ‘Gender’, held at Bozar, Brussels, from 18 June – 31 August 2014.

The artists and photographers featured were: Hélène Amouzou (Togo/Belgium), Rehema Chachage (Tanzania), Angèle Étoundi Essamba (Cameroon/Netherlands), Cecilia Ferreira (South Africa), Lisa Hilli (Papua New Guinea/Australia), Hélène Jayet (Mali/France), Katia Kameli (Algeria/France), Majida Khattari (Morocco/France), Shigeyuki Kihara (Samoa/New Zealand), Michèle Magema (DRC/France), Ato Malinda (Kenya), Zanele Muholi (South Africa), Maud Sulter (Ghana/Scotland), Alberta Whittle (Barbados/South Africa) and Mwangi Hutter (Kenya/Germany).

Curated by Christine Eyene, this exhibition brought together more than 80 works comprising photographs and videos, as well as archival material from the Making Histories Visible project, dealing with the body, gender and sexuality, spanning from the 1980s up to our time. The show also premiered Mwangi Hutter’s large-scale three-screen video installation Turquoise Realm (2014). The works selected gave an insight of visual responses to gendered experiences as diverse as the artists individual concerns, practices and the geographical contexts from which they emerge, be it Africa, the Caribbean, Pacific Islands or today’s recomposed Diasporas.

Broaching historical, socio-political and cultural contexts, WHERE WE’RE AT! Other voices on gender addressed the stereotypification of the non-western body in mainstream visual culture and sought to bring in a culturally diverse approach to female-oriented, feminist, and queer aesthetics. This project was also an invitation for the viewers to share the artists’ visual narratives – from the very intimate, to overt forms of discontent – and reflect on how one’s own body and experience filter through the gaze, and influence one’s perception of a diversity of genders.

The trilingual catalogue (English, French, Dutch) edited by Christine Eyene, with a foreword by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Women Executive Director, is published by SILVANA EDITORIALE and BOZAR BOOKS.

This exhibition was co-produced by BOZAR, Centre for Fine Arts and The Royal Museum for Central Africa in partnership with the University of Central Lancashire.

Click on images to view the photo gallery

Agenda magazine featuring work by Zanele Muholi

Hall Horta, BOZAR, Brussels

‘Meet the Artists’ event introduced by Kathleen Louw, Project Manager Africa, BOZAR, and Isabelle Van Loo, Education & Culture, Royal Museum for Central Africa

Kathleen Louw and Chantal Eboko, Union des Femmes Africaines, Belgique

Toma Luntumbe Muteba and Michèle Magema

Alberta Whittle

Cecilia Ferreira

Lisa Hilli and Shigeyuki Kihara

Visitor reading WHERE WE’RE AT! introductory text. © Yves Gervais, BOZAR.

Exhibition entrance with Lisa Hilli’s video Afrophobia (2007) © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Cecilia Ferreira, Place of blood (2011), video

Work by Angele Etoundi Essamba. © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Works by Angele Etoundi Essamba

Work by Zanele Muholi. © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Work by Zanele Muholi

Zanele Muholi, Caitlin and I (2009). Courtesy the artist and Stevenson

Hélène Jayet’s series Colored Only (2010 – ongoing)

Left: slideshow of Hélène Jayet’s series Colored Only (2010 – ongoing). Right: Lisa Hilli’s video Afrophobia (2007)

Lisa Hilli, Afrophobia (2007), video

Shigeyuki Kihara, Siva in Motion (2012). Video commissioned by the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand

Alberta Whittle, poster series

Alberta Whittle, Big Red (2012)

Work by Hélène Amouzou

Katia Kameli, Nouba (2000), video

Majida Khattari, Ninfa Moderna (2009-2010)

Majida Khattari, Les Parisiennes (2008-2009)

Archives from MAKING HISTORIES VISIBLE project UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL LANCASHIRE. © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Posters of exhibition by pioneering Black women photographers, held in the UK in the 1980s

Archive and quote by artist Marleen Smith

Selected pieces of archive

Lubaina Himid in Susan Walsh’s showreel Images and Conversations from the 1980s (2011)

Still from Susan Walsh’s showreel Images and Conversations from the 1980s (2011)

Sonia Boyce in Susan Walsh’s showreel Images and Conversations from the 1980s (2011)

Sutapa Biswas in Susan Walsh’s showreel Images and Conversations from the 1980s (2011). © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Maud Sulter, Plantation (1995)

Maud Sulter, Plantation (1995) detail

Mwangi Hutter, Mad Woman (2009)

Mwangi Hutter, Mad Woman (2009), video

Cecilia Ferreira, The Chaos Within (2009), video

Cecilia Ferreira, Place of Blood, 2011

Ato Malinda, Prison Sex I (2008), video

Exhibition view with work by Rehema Chachage and Michele Magema © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Rehema Chachage, Kwa Baba Rithi Undugu (2009), wood and video

Rehema Chachage, Orupa Mchikirwa/Mshanga (2012) detail

Michèle Magema, Good Bye Rosa – 2005 (2006)

Rehema Chachage, Orupa Mchikirwa/Mshanga (2012) detail

Michèle Magema, Good Bye Rosa – 2005 (2006)

Michèle Magema, Elément (2005), video

Katia Kameli, Untitled (2011), video

Mwangi Hutter, Turquoise Realm (2014), 3-channel video

Michèle Magema, Katia Kameli, Angèle Etoundi Essamba

Lisa Hilli and Ana Casas Broda

Cecilia Ferreira and Kathleen Louw

Kathleen Louw and Shigeyuki Kihara

Inauguration of Summer of Photography, 17 June 2014. © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Right Sophie Lauwers, Head of Exhibitions, BOZAR, and Christoph de Jaeger, Summer of Photography coordinator and photography curator, BOZAR, interviewd by Chris Burns. © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Exhibition introduction by Christine Eyene. Image: Pelagie Gbaguidi

A crowded BOZAR with Angèle Etoundi Essamba in the foreground. © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Chandelier performance by Steven Cohen. © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

Remaining glasses on reading table. In the background, work by Ana Casas Broda. © Yves Gervais, BOZAR

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