Invites you to the opening of three solo exhibitions

AFRICA WITHOUT BORDERS
Adolf Tega

Opening address by Lionel Davis

MY DIGITAL PLAGUE
Maurice Mbikayi

REMERGE
Kitty Dorje

Opening at 18:00 on Monday, 30 July 2012
Exhibition closes at 13:00 on Friday,
24 August 2012

Africa without Borders is an exhibition of mixed media paintings by Adolf Tega that employ the Main gallery of the AVA. African migration is unpacked on the painted surface. Africa without Borders depicts the systems that process migrants, how the individuals survive and how they integrate into societies foreign to them. The use of materials is symbolic; the textures on the painted surface are created with soil, referencing the myth, that when one goes into foreign lands, one must lick the soil as a sign of acceptance. The spirits of these lands will then secure the individual from all foreign ills.

Maurice Mbikayi writes of his installation:

I’m dragged into a virtual world of codes daily. There in that valley, an irresistible fascination and a whispering concern, transforms me into something alien - battling my digital demons. Every day is inevitably tiring; I click, type and enter this world. Suddenly I’m surrounded by an overwhelming invasion of aliens. I backspace; try to shift, but their mobility and fashionable grip on me Ctrl my moves. Then I pause - break, try to upgrade my hits: 1, 2, 3. But the aliens inject me with their multiple insidious diseases. I slowly contract some insane after effect experiences: Speed dial moves, focus on subjects, zoom in, zoom out, click on this , click on that - Bluetooth into the brain, just couldn’t get my senses. I twitted, I tagged; it became worse. Before I realized it, I was a half alien, locked up in the “Silly Valley”, googling my dreams to be one of them, with my Negro skin suffering the hypodermic injections of their insatiable grid.