Bless the Land that Opened Our Eyes
Two women explore their identities in relation to nature through visual arts.
By African Leadership Academy
Curated by: Rayhana Mouaouia
Finding womanhood in nature
In this exhibit, the powerful relationship between nature and womanhood is brought to the fore by two female artists. While the artists express themselves using different media, their works are in dialogue with each other as they begin to unpack their identities.
Introducing Erika Kimani
Erika Kimani is a visual artist from Botswana of Kenyan, Motswana and Zimbabwean descent. Her primary mediums being acrylic paint, charcoal, film and photography. Erika started as a dedicated writer and poet and visual art is an extension of her passion for storytelling
Spring in June by Erika KimaniAfrican Leadership Academy
Kimani's work is greatly influenced by her mixed African heritage, her relationship to religion, social injustice, and mental health.
In her recent painting, titled Spring in June, Kimani uses acrylic paint in gestural brushstrokes and vibrant colors to depict a woman surrounded by a field of flowers. She is rendered so to appear she is floating within the field, resonating with Kimani's previous piece Bontle.
As Kimani explains, the painting depicts references the subject’s reckoning with their sexuality after spending hours in a field of flowers. It is a stylised portrait representing the clarity and comfort that can be found when people retreat to nature.
Introducing Hodo Sabrie
Hodo Sabrie is a photographer from Hargeisa, Somalia. Currently enrolled for a bachelor’s degree at Webster University Athens. Hodo is passionate about photography, and about using the medium to close the gender gap in patriarchal societies.
In a series of photographs, titled Sine Cera, Hodo explore women's empowerment and how societal gender expectations placed on women influence their lives. The images focus on showing the strength and the confidence that women can possess while exploring the convergence of Afrofuturism and the natural world.
Sine Cera by Hodo SabrieAfrican Leadership Academy
Hodo's female subjects are bold - they are shrugging off the expectations historically placed on them. In one image, a woman sits with her legs slightly apart, firmly placed upon the ground, emanating an aura of strength and confidence.
This pose opposes the ladylike postures women have been traditionally taught to employ.
She holds a teacup in one hand, challenging the class, race, and gender structures synonymous with Victorian tea parties.
The woman gazes at something outside the frame of the image. The teacup and saucer are held nonchalantly; they become incidental, almost irrelevant. No longer powerful symbols of rigid conventions but rather something to be thrown aside at the slightest call to action.
Sine Cera by Hodo SabrieAfrican Leadership Academy
Each character is adorned with glitter and striking patterns. These visuals hint at a world beyond the rigidity of class and gender structures, at a mystical place existing beyond history, beyond time and beyond societial constructs.
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