AFRICA CONTEMPORARY ART & JUST ART INTERNATIONAL
Africa Contemporary Art is a niche visual arts agency, based out of South Africa, working with a select stable of multi-media artists, with a primary focus on human rights - and, consequently contemporary identities, and geographies (Africa, the global South, and the creative intersection with the traditions of the global North). Social justice is an overriding concern (serious, ironic but also fantastical and whimsical in expression).
Just Art International, our non-profit entity, focuses exclusively on the intersection of art and impact, social justice, and human rights, and has developed a reputation for implementing large-scale, multi-disciplinary art projects with at-risk communities in (South) Africa, - with the expressed intention of leaving behind a legacy of sustainable community interventions.
Key projects include
THE SPIRAL OF CONTAINMENT: in collaboration with photographer Elisa Iannacone - 2022 TO 2023
COME LET'S PLAY - THIS IS ME: in collaboration with our sister company impact4good and the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital - 2023 ongoing
CURRENT EXHIBITION: THE SPIRAL OF CONTAINMENT:
ELISA IANNACONE
"My career as a cinematographer and photojournalist came to a sudden halt after I was sexually assaulted in 2011.
After the assault, I felt like a shadow of a person, without much direction, and barely any capacity to navigate earth.
Through art therapy, I started to process my assault creatively: I kept imagining myself stripped bare, with these antler wings. They had once had feathers but were no longer usable. I reached out to other people, who had been raped to explore the images that spiralled in their own minds. The result became a project that aims to impact people around the world". Elisa Iannacone, 2018.
THE SPIRAL OF CONTAINMENT: RAPE'S AFTERMATH, (SPIRAL), by Mexican-Canadian photographer, cinematographer and foreign correspondent, Elisa Iannacone, is a multi-media experiential exhibition consists of 24 photographs, soundscapes and installations, and one hologram, each of which features a single rape survivor, in an elaborately constructed, magical-realist portrait. The works were created by the photographer in collaboration with each subject, reconstructing and reframing the original traumatic experience into one of empowerment, agency, and revitalised identity.
SPIRAL is available for viewing until July 2022 at CONSTITUTION HILL in Johannesburg, where it has been specially curated for installation in the 25 chilling Isolation Cells of Number 4 Prison in South Africa's premiere human rights site.
SPIRAL GLOBAL TOUR IN SOUTH AFRICA: FEBRUARY 2022 - JULY 2022
Following a successful preview of four key works at the INVESTEC CAPE TOWN ART FAIR in February 2022, a contained exhibition and external installation at NIROX FOUNDATION, and now the full exhibition at CONSTITUTION HILL to 29 June 2022, THE SPIRAL exhibition will commence it's global tour through 2022 into 2025 at both heritage and commercial venues (including two art fairs annually).
Elisa was in residence at the NIROX FOUNDATION during May 2022, where she produced a new body of work on Children and Trauma. Due for release in July 2022.
MEDIA REVIEWS
See also media reviews of the Constitution Hill SPIRAL exhibition :
MORE BY ELISA IANNACONE
While in South Africa, Elisa completed 9 works in a new series on children and trauma. These will be launched officially in late 2022.
A semi-permanent site-specific installation is available for viewing a the NIROX SCULPTURE GARDEN in the Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng.
ELISA IANNACONE
On location at
NIROX SCULPTURE PARK
ACA CURATORIAL APPROACH: CREATIVITY, IDENTITY & JUSTICE
Africa Contemporary Art has curated a small but focused stable of artists, with a strong focus on human rights. The key curatorial approach focuses on contemporary identities, and geogrophies (Africa, the global South, and the creative intersection with the global North traditions). Inevitably, social justice is an overriding concern (serious, ironic but also whimsical and comical).
Please see ACA and JUST ART's extended portfolio of contemporary projects here - and download our brochure.
