Exhibition opening with festival artist Nicole Rafiki
Exhibition period: 26.10. – 14.11. 2020
How do you find your way home when none of the places you belong to turn out to be the utopia you dreamed of? How does one find peace in a rootless and ambivalent state, where the black body is perceived as a foreign, unwanted element?
The exhibition "Bis" is about Nicole Rafiki´'s personal and artistic process. In Bis, she explores how the effects of war, forced migration and exclusion has helped to "create" her identity as a woman and as an artist. Her work is characterized by growth and self-determination as it provides an insight into the artist's various mental states as she tries to understand the delicate complexities of the decolonization of her own reality. In addition to photography, her practice includes wearables, textile work and social gatherings.
Artist bio:
Nicole Rafiki has a BA in International Development Studies from Oslo Met and an MA in Social Communication from the University of Agder. She has previously worked with unaccompanied minor refugees, as a journalist and documentary photographer. The project "Descendants" which is a contribution to the UN decade for people of African origin has been shown in public exhibitions in Oslo, Trondheim, Kristiansand and Bergen. Since she started working with art photography in 2018, her artistic work has been shown in international group exhibitions, including one of Africa's largest art fairs, Turbine art fair, in 2019. "Ascension" and "Bis" are Rafiki's first solo exhibitions in Norway.
