ELISA IANNACONE
ALL THE CAKES IN THE WORLD
NMCH series: Come, Let's Play (Toolong re Bapaleng)
Hahnemule Photo Rag Baryta on diasec
Edition of 5 (1200 x 800mm)
Edition of 10 (600 x 420mm)
Portions of proceeds of purchases from AFRICA CONTEMPORARY ART go to the
NELSON MANDELA CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
to commemorate their 5-year anniversary
"Each of us, as citizens, has a role to play in creating a better world for our children."
Nelson Mandela at luncheon hosted by Kofi Anan: Special UN Session for Children, 2002.
WORLDS OF WHIMSY The three artists on exhibition at the Africa Contemporary (ACA) stand, at TAF 2022 (and beyond) are accomplished creators of WORLDS OF WHIMSY. Each artist: photographer Elisa Iannacone, ceramicist Kevin Collins, and sculptor, Collen Maswanganyi, 'playing' in different media, create whimsical worlds, drawn from reality, talking about reality and reinventing reality - with whimsy and wit. All three are drawn by a love of humanity, and a tolerance for human foibles.
KEVIN COLLINS
THE POX
Ceramic stoneware plate
COLLEN MASHWANGANYI
SPEAR AND SHIELD
Corkwood and acrylic
KEVIN COLLINS
REVES DE TIGRE (Tiger dreams)
Ceramic stoneware plate
ELISA IANNACONE
THE GREAT ESCAPE
NMCH series: Come, Let's Play (Toolong re Bapaleng)
Hahnemule Photo Rag Baryta on diasec
Edition of 5 (1200 x 800mm)
Edition of 10 (600 x 420mm)
ELISA IANNACONE
NMCH series: Come, Let's Play (Toolong re Bapaleng)
Hahnemule Photo Rag Baryta on diasec
Edition of 5 (1200 x 800mm)
Edition of 10 (600 x 420mm)
Nelson Mandela had a dream: A hospital for the children of South Africa. In June 2016, two and a half years after his death, the NELSON MANDELA CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL (NMCH) opened its doors to its first patients. A truly uplifting and joy-filled institution (architectonically and clinically) NMCH continues to dispense extraordinary life-saving health-care, happiness, and joy to its visitors, every day.
To celebrate the five year anniversary of the NELSON MANDELA CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL, AFRICA CONTEMPORARY ART collaborated with the team at NMCH and the NELSON MANDELA CHILDREN’S FUND to create five photographic portraits of five young patients - four renal dialysis patients who spend four days per week at their "home-from-home", and one cardiac patient. The project was titled: ' Come Let's Play! (Tloong Re Bapaleng!)'.
Photographer, Elisa Iannacone met with each child, and talked - and played - with them to
tease out their hopes, dreams and desires into a realisable dreams-cape. Iannacone transformed the hospital beds and wards into fantasy-scapes - from balloon flights; to carnivals; a world of cakes; a car racing through space; or a dance in a fashion heaven. The resulting portraits at play are filled with hope, joy, whimsy and delight – for both the children (and families), and the viewer. Each work is a testimony to the care that encompasses the NMCH professional ethos.
We are privileged to have been able to work with the dedicated team on our project which debuts at this year's TAF2022... and continues through the year on- and off-line.
While Elisa Iannacone transforms the lives of her subjects into magnificent, heroic, contemporary mythical spectacles, for Collins and Maswanganyi, the subjects of their work are figments of their creative imaginings:
Sculptor, COLLEN MASWANGANYI'S satirical play on, and with, socio-political and religious conventions, is carved into painted wooden sculptural totems, drawn from reality.
For ceramicist, KEVIN COLLINS, centuries of cultural and aesthetic references provide witty allusions for his allegorical ceramic portraits. Kevin’s whimsical daily meanderings on clay are visual fables of comedic myth and imagination. Kiln-fired stoneware showpieces, they are a contemporary take on the ornamental porcelain plate of yesteryear
DO NOT MISS
THE SPIRAL OF CONTAINMENT BY ELISA IANNACONE
AT CONSTITUTION HILL JOHANNESBURG
UNTIL END-AUGUST 2022
THE SPIRAL OF CONTAINMENT: ELISA IANNACONE
CONSTITUTION HILL EXHIBITION EXTENDED TO END AUGUST 2022.
"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 has been extended to END AUGUST 2022 and can be viewed 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.
AFRICA CONTEMPORARY ART & JUST ART INTERNATIONAL
Africa Contemporary Art works with a select stable of artists, with a strong focus on human rights. The key curatorial approach focuses on contemporary identities, and geographies (Africa, the global South, and the creative intersection with the global North traditions). Inevitably, social justice is an overriding concern (serious, ironic but also fantastical and whimsical in expression).
Just Art International, the 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 the expressed intention of leaving behind a legacy of sustainable community interventions.
Our key project for 2022-2025, and its associated massive social impact legacy projects focusing on at risk communities in (South) Africa, THE SPIRAL PROJECT, has been in incubation since 2018, in collaboration with Elisa Iannacone's REFRAME HOUSE, will be showcased in late 2022.
Our Just.Art high-impact and creative social justice legacy projects (murals, incubators and accelerators) with impact4good can be seen here.
