The Here Project: Pride and Belonging in African Art
Kevin D. Dumouchelle
Synopsis "The Here Project: Pride and Belonging in African Art"
200 stunning images in this companion book to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art exhibition celebrates more than 60 LGBTQ+ African artists
We are here. This powerful volume platforms artists whose work reflects their identities and experiences as African LGBTQ+ individuals. Its very existence challenges homophobia by centering queer voices and visions amidst historical legacies of erasure and repression. At the same time, the LGBTQ+ experience in Africa is not monolithic. Political, social, and cultural freedoms and limits vary widely across both the continent and the wider diaspora, and the artists represented here have also been selected to help readers recognize that diversity.
More than 200 stunning images represent a range of media, including painting, photography, digital art, fashion, installation, and performance. The empowering and evocative imagery makes visible marginalized bodies and lives: Athi-Patra Ruga’s tapestry Versatile Queen presents himself in drag to confront normative ideas of Blackness and masculinity; Zanele Muholi’s self-portrait Muholi Muholi, Parktown uses makeup and saturation to highlight the blackness of their skin tone in contrast to prevailing representations of Black women; Mehdi-Georges Lahlou’s sculpture of a man with rainbow blown glass bananas atop his head recalls exoticized colonial imagery.
The text approaches artworks at an intimate level and places them in larger historical and artistic contexts. Grouping the works in thematic sections draws parallels across art and fosters ongoing conversations:
Family: explores how birth and chosen families shape understanding of awareness of self and the worldIntimacy: considers self-realization made possible through bodily connectionJoy: focuses on stories of happiness, connection, and pleasure, contradicting stereotypes of queer traumaSpirit: represents African faith traditions and shows space for queer peopleFluidity: disrupts expectations of gendered categories Belong: asserts how queer people’s experiences are rooted in the larger history and cultures that shaped themAction: expresses political activism at its heartFutures: presents utopian visions of a world to come In its continental and diasporic survey of queer African art and artists, The Here Project is rare in its scope and scale and pays beautiful tribute to contemporary artists making essential work.
