A talk between Temitayo Ogunbiyi, Nomaduma Rosa Masilela and Thiago de Paula Souza
Hosted by G.A.S. Lagos in conjunction with Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, On Play is the last phase of a long-term collaboration between artist, curator, and G.A.S. trustee Temitayo Ogunbiyi and Vleeshal's nomadic curators Nomaduma Rosa Masilela and Thiago de Paula Souza.
During the afternoon Temitayo launched the beta version of her new virtual playground experience uncovering the project through conversation with Thiago and Nomaduma, the curatorial duo responsible for Vleeshal Centre for Contemporary Art´s Nomadic Program 2022-2023. With a practice anchored in collaborative methodologies, they have developed a coherent program that takes place beyond the walls of Vleeshal’s Middelburg home base in the Netherlands. Nomaduma and Thiago's collaborative engagement largely revolves around the question posed by the US-American poet-activist Audre Lorde: How do we learn to love each other while we are embattled on so many fronts?
EVENT DETAILS
Date: 3rd November 2023
Time: 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: G.A.S. Lagos, 9B Hakeem Dickson Drive, off T.F. Kuboye Road, Oniru, Lagos
ABOUT THE PANEL
Temitayo Ogunbiyi’s practice explores the relationship between the environment, line, and representation. Moving between drawing, painting, sculpture and installation, her work responds to and forges dialogues between global current events, anthropological histories, and botanical cultures. Systems that capture, mediate, and direct the movement of people and matter is a recurring subject of investigation in her practice. In 2018, she built her first functional playground, appropriating construction materials and conventional household items.
Thiago de Paula Souza is a curator, educator and researcher interested in expanding and re-elaborating the exhibition format, and in the possibilities of contemporary art and education to rethink the past and produce new ethical codes. His practice crosses different configurations of knowledge and power, articulating the construction of infrastructures to imagine a world in which violence is no longer its foundation. He has been working with artists interested in the intersection of ecology, digital futures and the contradictions of political subjectivities, be they framed by race or gender. He is a member of the curatorial board of Ners Art Foundation. In 2022 he co-curated Atos de revolta (Acts of revolt), at MAM- Rio, and between 2020 and 2021 he was part of the curatorial team of the 3rd edition of Frestas—Triennial of Arts, São Paulo organized by Sesc-SP. In 2018/2019 he was a fellow at the Post-academic Program at BAK in Utrecht, where he also curated Tony Cokes' first solo exhibition in the country. Previously, he was part of the curatorial team of the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2018). More recently, he was a curatorial advisor for the 58th Carnegie International (2021/2022). He is a PhD researcher at HDK-Valand at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Nomaduma Rosa Masilela is a curator, artist, and writer interested in collective work and strategy, the ephemera of exile and xenophobia, and the ambivalent natures of authenticity, history and identity production. Her curatorial practice includes exhibitions and projects with Para Site (Hong Kong), the Museum für Fotographie (Germany), Rijksakademie (the Netherlands), the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (Germany), the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, and The Kitchen in New York (USA). As a writer, Nomadumca has written essays for various catalogues and publications, most recently for the artist Simone Leigh's monographic catalogue for the ICA Boston (2023); Among Others: Blackness at MoMA (2019), as well as for publications for the Studio Museum in Harlem (USA), DAAD and Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany), amongst others. She was an invited speaker at the last Loophole of Retreat, hosted in Venice, Italy (2022), and a member of the selection committee of the current VideoBrasil biennial in São Paulo (2023). Nomaduma has ongoing research on collective and performance art practices in Dakar, Senegal, and she currently holds a commitment to writing and curatorial practice to critically supporting the work of queer and femme-identifying artists from the global south and its diasporas. She holds a Masters in Art History and Philosophy from Columbia University in New York.
Banner image: Temitayo Ogunbiyi, Yọyọ FLOW (Still), 2023. Courtesy of the Artist and Vleeshal Centre for Contemporary Art.