About
Farieda Nazier and Alberta Whittle have worked collaboratively on the research project, Right of Admission (RoA) since 2014. This ongoing body of research simultaneously transitions as performance, intervention and archive. Intervening into public and private zones, RoA seeks to create opportunities for conversation and exchange with the people they encounter through collectively examining technologies of surveillance.
Farieda Nazier is a Johannesburg based artist, educator and researcher. She is the Head of Department of Jewellery Design and Manufacture in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. Her creative practice explores the psychological intricacies embedded within a range of pertinent socio-political themes. She uses provocative sculptural installations to create opportunities for further exploration into the discursive tensions between artist, creative practice, cultural products, and education. She has successfully co-curated and participated in a number of art exhibitions, both locally and internationally. Tension Torsion: 20 Years On hosted by the Ithuba Arts Gallery in Johannesburg (2014), was a show of sculptural installations curated by Nazier. Subsequent to her solo-show entitled After Math: An exploration of temporality, wounding and consequence hosted by the Apartheid Museum in August 2012, Nazier and collaborator Mocke J Van Veuren were selected as finalist in the MTN New Contemporary Awards 2012.
Furthermore, Nazier has developed and co-ordinated various educational programmes and activities for a number of leading South African and International institutions. These include the Barbier Mueller Gold of Africa Museum, the Apartheid Museum, the University of Johannesburg and the Glasgow School of Art Enterprises. In 2012, Nazier initiated, developed and curated a museum based critical arts-based course entitled the Emerging Arts Activist program, which applies the original Freirian praxis criteria but extends it towards socio-political art processes and civic engagement. The annual course was successfully piloted in June 2013 in partnership with the University of Johannesburg Transformation Unit and the Apartheid Museum. The creative outputs of the program resulted in a travelling exhibition, which allowed the participants a platform to engage with the local and international audiences. In 2018, Nazier will be presenting her research as a series of interventions in a solo exhibition at The Apartheid Museum. |
Alberta Whittle is a Barbadian artist, researcher and educator. Her practice is informed by diasporic conversation and working collectively towards radical love – she moves between the UK, Barbados and South Africa.
Foregrounding her research is an analysis of creative strategies employed to question the authority of postcolonial power, its implications and its legacy. Whittle has exhibited in various solo and group shows, including at the Johannesburg Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, FRAMER FRAMED (Amsterdam), Royal Scottish Academy and David Dale Gallery (Scotland), BOZAR (Belgium), National Art Gallery (Bahamas) and at the Goethe On Main and Constitution Hill (South Africa). In 2016, The Polity of Φ, a multi-sited research project initiated by Whittle and artist/writer Deniz Uster and funded by Creative Scotland was presented at Intermedia (CCA) during Glasgow International Arts Festival 2016. Since 2016, Alberta has been a Committee Member of Transmission Gallery in Glasgow, where her curatorial research looks at the need to decolonise public art institutions. Over 2017-8, Whittle will be joint curator alongside Euan Gray and Elaine Rutherford on a multi-sited project looking at Scottish diaspora identities, both within Scotland and in the US, possibly extending to the Caribbean and Canada during 2017-2020. Confirmed venues include the City Arts Centre, MANY Studios, Inverness Art Gallery (Scotland) and Alice R Rogers & Target Galleries, St, John’s University, Minnesota (USA). During 2018, Alberta will be undertaking research residencies at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) and at Creative Lab at the Centre of Contemporary Art (CCA) both in in Glasgow. In May 2018, Alberta will be presenting her research at The Showroom in London as part of Holding Space, a research group examining colonial administration and decolonial processes. Whittle is a freelance journalist and her critical writing has been published in Visual Culture in Britain, Art South Africa and Critical Arts Academic Journal. |