Bending the Axis
Curated by Kathleen Ditzig, Carlos Quijon, Jr., Meyken Barreto and Uche James Iroha
Bending the Axis is a programme that is inspired by the concept of ‘Axis Mundi’, which is a cosmological line that runs through the center of the earth connecting the underworld and heavens and thus constituting a vision of the universe. Common to many different indigenous belief systems around the world, the Axis Mundi can also be understood as a mediation between the north and the south.
While still working within hemispheric categories of North and South, Bending the Axis articulates a rendition of the world that is simultaneously bisected and constituted by this bipolar relation. This is an at-once precarious and poetic opportunity to reimagine the world as we know it. From poetic transformations of capitalism as a world-constituting virtue, mapping out new places of enunciation and polyphonic vocabularies of speaking to power, and charting a new map of globalization beyond cartographic anecdotes, Bending the Axis tilts the latitudes of decolonizing art and its histories through consolidating an art market and community of the South-South network.
Bending the Axis also included a Talks programme. Click here to listen to the recordings.
A Global South Cosmology of Capitalism
Curated by Kathleen Ditzig and Carlos Quijon, Jr.
COMO UN DRAGÓN / LIKE A DRAGON
Female voices from the Global South
Curated by Meyken Barreto
Foot in The Door
Investigating cultural fault lines in global socio-economics and its prospects for the Global South
Curated by Uche James Iroha
As The World Turns
Curated by Kathleen Ditzig, Carlos Quijon, Jr., Meyken Barreto and Uche James Iroha
About the curators
Meyken Barreto
b. Cuba
Curator, lecturer and writer
Read More
Recently she has curated the exhibitions Comedy of Errors at Vox Populi, Philadelphia, 2021; Shifting Streams. Twelve artists by the Hudson River at Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture, New York, 2020; The Path Leading to the Center at Lakehouse, Guttenberg Arts, 2017; Cabinet of Curiosities: The whimsical world of Carlos de Medeiros at Guttenberg Arts, NJ in 2017; and co-curated the group exhibitions My Body, My Battlefield at GIV, Montreal, 2021; All That You Have Is Your Soul at Faction Art Projects, New York in 2018; Divagation at Y Gallery, New York in 2016; Pioneros: Building Cuba’s Socialist Childhood at Aronson Galleries at Parsons, The New School for Design, New York in 2015, and Flow: Economies of the look and creativity in contemporary art from the Caribbean at IDB Cultural Center, Washington DC in 2014. She contributes to various art publications such as El Oficio and Artnexus.
Read Less
Uche James Iroha
b. Nigeria
Curator and visual artist
Read More
Originally trained as a sculptor from the University of Port Harcourt, Uche got involved in photography in 1996, pushing the narrative of photography as a medium of art in a cultural environment where, at that time, the medium was perceived largely as a commercial venture that focused mainly on capturing events and official documentation.
In regard to technique, his approach is largely construction and deconstruction of the visual plane trying to find the relationship and the workability between two and three-dimensional design.
He was a founding member of the Depth of Field (DOF) collective of talented young photographers that have created strong exhibitions at home in Nigeria and abroad throughout the 2001-2007 period. This era was the formal announcement of a renaissance in contemporary photography for lens-based artists working in Africa. His work was presented at Okwui Enwezor’s landmark exhibition at the International Center for Photography New York titled Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography in 2006.
Uche is one of the most visible mentors of younger photographers in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, organizing and animating workshops and other artistic projects. He was awarded the Prince Claus Award in the Netherlands in 2008 for his striking photographic work and his stimulation of photography as an art form in Nigerian and for his energetic support of young artists.
His work leads him to construct or set up performances, which are captured still. He employs text and graphics on image surfaces to find a sculptural accent to his work. This he hopes will attempt to address certain issues both socially and generally.
In his curatorial practice, he pays attention to the idea of archiving as a critical cultural emergency. In the framework of the Africa Photo Festival in Bamako 2019 he presented the incredible work of Nigerian photographer Tola Odukoya who was active between 1955-1980. The narrative was to shed some light on unseen and work created by largely unknown artists who produced compelling visual materials and objects that in his opinion may unpack more honest directions as far Africa’s global political and economic stance is concerned. He also curated the 2018 and 2019 Abuja Photo Festival.
At the moment Iroha works as a conductor at Photo.Garage Lagos, an office the provides logistics as well as offers an indigenous platform for domestic and global intellectual photography exchanges. He has shown his work in numerous exhibitions. He lives and works between Houston, Texas and Lagos, Nigeria.
Read Less
Carlos Quijon, Jr.
b. Philippines
Curator and critic
Read More
Read Less
Kathleen Ditzig
b. Singapore
Curator and researcher
Read More
As a curator and researcher, she is invested in transnational collaborative research frameworks and in advancing art as an exceptional system of speaking to power. Her collaborative independent curatorial projects, such as offshoreart.co (developed with Robin Lynch and Debbie Ding), have been presented on international platforms such as the Berlin Biennale. With Carlos Quijon Jr, she recently developed the long term research and traveling exhibition project Afro-Southeast Asia: Pragmatics and Geopoetics of Art during a Cold War supported by ASEAN KONNECT. With Fang Tse Hsu, she recently co-curated Art Histories of a Forever War: Modernism between Space and Home at the Taipei Fine Art Museum.
Her recent exhibitions include Peace Prosperity and Friendship With All Nations (2021), a solo exhibition of Heman Chong at Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Look East, Gone West (2020), a solo exhibition of Ho Rui An, at A+ works of art in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and As The West Slept (2019), a Performa Consortium Project hosted and organised by Silver Art Projects in New York.
Her art historical research and writing has been published by MoMA, Afterall, SOJOURN, Southeast of Now (NUS Press), Artforum, OSMOS magazine, Art Agenda and Art Review Asia, among others.
Read Less