Theme 7: Communal Resilience

Nú Barreto is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses painting, drawing, photography, video, and sculpture. Born in Sao Dominos, Guinea-Bissau, he learned to draw at an early age inspired, in part, by comic books. Then he studied photography in France, graduating from the National School of Image of Gobelins, eventually settling in Paris and gaining worldwide acclaim for his groundbreaking art pieces, among which is the Disunited States of Africa series featuring paintings of imaginary all-Africa flags. Deeply concerned with social, political, economic situation of his country as well as of the African continent, Barreto’s body of work is an ongoing bitterly ironic manifesto on inequalities both between and within nations, races, and classes.

Calema is a music duo from São Tomé and Príncipe, composed of two brothers Fradique and António Mendes Ferreira, born in 1987 and 1992. Like many Santomense people, they are descended from Cape Verdeans, Portuguese and Angolans, carrying with them a diverse cultural heritage that has inspired their passion for music.

The brothers attended primary school in São João dos Angolares, the capital of the Caué district, where they were part of the choral group of the Church of Santa Cruz dos Angolares. In 2008 they came to Portugal to pursue their professional degrees on the music industry. Fradique pursued a degree in Multimedia in Évora, and António, a degree in Video Production in Lisbon. This began their musical journey and in 2009 they formed their group naming it Calema.

Born in 1990, Gael Maski is a mixed-media artist who lives and works in Kinshasa. Trained in painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Kinshasa, his practice has evolved to embrace other media. Inspired by the 2017 Lubumbashi Biennale, whose theme Éblouissements (dazzlements) explored the ways in which reality can be reimagined through images, Maski decided to base his practice on photography. He uses photocollage as a means of blending the real and the imaginary. Maski has been represented by Angalia Gallery since 2019.

Hyacinthe Ouattara was born in 1981 in Burkina Faso. He is a self-taught multidisciplinary gestural abstraction artist who lives and works in Paris, France. His creative process is inspired by bringing to the visible realm the unseen forces uniting all elements in the universe. In his exploration of omnipresent interdependency, Ouattara organically transitions from one material to another; he experiments with a variety of art forms, from drawing to performance, and compares his process to writing music. Like musical pieces, his creations are born from his emotions and the “spirit of the place” at the moment when he gets to work.

Rijasolo was born in France and returned to Madagascar, the country of his roots, in 2004.

In 2005 Rijasolo was a selected artist for the Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine in Bamako, Mali, and then again in 2019 as the winner of the Paritana Contemporary Art Award. In 2022 he was the winner of the World Press Photo Category “Africa, Long-Term Projects” for his series La Guerre Des Zebus. His work is inspired by the humanist documentary photography style, in line with the pure tradition of American photojournalism where the photographer is fully immersed in his subject. Rijasolo now lives and works in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

Kavinash Thomoo is a multidisciplinary artist and art educator who lives and works in Mauritius. Trained in fine arts at the University of Mauritius and Anglia Ruskin University in the UK, he has participated in many national and international exhibitions including the 56^th Venice Biennale in 2015. Thomoo’s practice ranges from traditional media like drawing and painting to new media art (installation, photography, and video). He is deeply concerned with socio-political, psychological and environmental issues. In his recent body of work, he reflects on the social and psychological effects of confinement and isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.