The sixth annual Cape Town Art Fair is flexing its international muscles.
For the first time nearly half of the exhibitors at Africa’s leading art fair are from abroad. This year there’s a strong focus on women with a dedicated Solo section. Young and old came to marvel at contemporary art from across the globe.
For young Ugandan artist, Stacey Gillian Abe, the fair offered a unique opportunity. She is one of 10 women that each have a solo exhibit. Her piece, Seat of Honour, explores, among others, her experiences as a woman growing up in a city versus traditional expectations.
“Looking at it from a cultural background, we women are considered very fragile in all aspects and automatically society would imagine we cannot do something as much as our male counterparts would do. So to prove yourself you actually have to go out of your way to show you can actually do it.”
An artist set to be one of tomorrow’s leading names, Usha Seejarim, walked away with the fair’s coveted Tomorrow/Today award.
Seejarim takes mundane domestic objects and transforms it.
“My focus area is about the position of women and I do that through the objects that I use. They are very genderised objects an iron and a hanger is not very male, but why is that, why is it that we associate these objects with women, with the domestic, why is it that the domestic is female and those are the questions my work ask.”
WATCH BELOW:
