October 2–November 20, 2022
Opening reception: September 30, 6–8pm
While we are embattled, curated by Nomaduma Rosa Masilela and Thiago de Paula Souza, is the seventh installment of Para Site’s yearly Emerging Curators exhibition.The exhibition brings together works by Noor Abed, Morehshin Allahyari, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Sara Haq, Junghun Kim, Carolyn Lazard, Sabelo Mlangeni, Jota Mombaça, Avery Z. Nelson, Temitayo Ogunbiyi, and a newly commissioned reading room presented by Contemporary And (C&).
The curators face and imagine the possibilities to re-narrate and regenerate ourselves with the physical and virtual spaces we occupy by drawing on the problems raised and acts taken by Black women artists and feminists, as well as activities related to Black radical theory. The exhibition contextualizes the ideas and practices of Black radical praxis in Hong Kong, expanding on their global ramifications and parallels while looking at issues of safety and retreat as creative strategies for participation, safety, and survival. In the face of a global pandemic and uprisings around the world related to racial inequalities, political violence, and ecological crisis, the exhibition emerges as an ongoing inquiry by the curators into the many impediments we face today, not only in connecting with one another, but also in suggesting a ground for future engagement and solidarity: what happens in this in-between state, which we currently find ourselves in, and what happens at this point of meeting during overlapping and ongoing periods of embattlement?
The exhibition is part of a larger, ongoing research project and collaboration between Masilela and de Paula Souza, which revolves around the question posed by the American poet-activist Audre Lorde: “How do we learn to love each other while we are embattled on so many fronts?” The exhibition title, which exists inside an intermediate state of being and is mirrored in the exhibition design by Human Architects, takes the shape of the conjunctive clause to this overarching inquiry. The exhibition, which alternates between generative and chaotic states, provides a chance for alignment by bringing together ten international artists and practitioners, along with a reading room that was specially made for Para Site in association with the C& Center of Unfinished Business, Asia Art Archive, and other local collaborators. Involving the audience in the politics of affection, the exhibition serves as a reminder of the potential for people to join together in the face of extreme adversity.
Para Site
22/F, Wing Wah Ind. Building
677 King’s Road, Quarry Bay
Hong Kong
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