Join us live over Zoom for an afternoon of thoughtful exchange and collaborative discussion with virtual residents Nura Ali ((Calrgary, Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, the Métis Nation Region 3) and Pebofatso Mokoena (Johannesburg, South Africa). The artists will deliver back-to-back presentations, offering a glimpse into the research and works produced throughout the Worldings virtual residency program, followed by a group conversation and live audience Q/A.
Offered in partnership with the Bag Factory in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Worldings virtual residency exchange connects Canadian artist Nura Ali (Calrgary, Blackfoot Confederacy, the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, the Métis Nation Region 3) with Johannesburg-based artist Pebofatso Mokoena over the course of an intensive two-month creation period during which the artists will have the opportunity to meet virtually, build a relationship and engage in critical dialogue fostered through scheduled studio visits and discussion sessions. Ali and Mokoena with be joined by a larger cohort of artists comprised of Griffin’s current onsite residents, Josephine Lee and Xwalacktun who reside on the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, as well as the BAG Factory’s onsite artists Lebogang Mogul Mabusela, and Wezile Mgibe.
This residency exchange is hosted in conjunction with “Worldings” a collaborative, multi-layered project that includes an exhibition of the work of South African artist William Kentridge curated by Lisa Baldissera, as well as a public program and residency series that will explore the unique artistic perspectives and histories that exist between the Canadian and South African experience as seen through the eyes of artists, writers, curators and activists. This program will focus on resiliency through the lens of the historical events of the last year, and the ways in which solidarity, resistance and advocacy are remitted in hope, for their capacities to elicit lasting structural change and collective care.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Nura Ali
Nura Ali is a visual artist, community organizer and social activist, living and working in Calgary, Alberta. Her multidisciplinary practise is deeply rooted in investigating the linguistic scaffolding upholding the construction of race and the vailed verbal and textual strategies that perpetuate white supremacy. Nura is deeply invested in strategies to dismantle oppressive structures and for this reason became one of the founding members of the Vancouver Artists Labour Union; a unionized workers cooperative with a mission to transform labour practices within the arts sector in order to create fair, equitable and sustainable working conditions for artists and cultural workers.
Pebofatso Mokoena
Born 1993, Ekurhuleni, South Africa | Lives and works, Johannesburg, South Africa
Pebofatso completed his NDip (Visual Art) at the University of Johannesburg and his BA (Visual Art) at Wits with distinction. He is a lecturer in Drawing and Interdisciplinary Presentation at the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at UJ.
Mokoena has had 4 solo presentations of his work - The Pebofatso Experience, Inside Jobs, Internal Probes, and Neoclassical Taste Matrix currently on show at First Floor Gallery Harare. Group shows include Diptych; Disclosure, Fresh Produce, Songs of Sankofa, Inner Nature, Fortunes Remixed and South African Voices: A New Generation of Printmakers. In 2020, Mokoena received a merit award for the Wits Young Artist Award.
Emerging from early practice in drawing and printmaking, Mokoena’s painting practice is formally underscored by precise mark-making and division of space, thinking with ideas around micro and macro maps of politics, visual art, architecture and the environment, which is, in theory, getting smaller and smaller.
Mokoena’s work is currently rooted in the relations between micro and macro maps of meaning across multiple environments. Thinking through interdisciplinary modes such as architecture, layering practices, decoloniality, mind-mapping and aesthetics, Pebofatso uses his own personal narratives and a consistent application of experimental enquiry as tools to make sense of, and potentially build parallel cosmologies, set across a world that (in theory) is becoming smaller and smaller.