Video Installations Highlights Cantor Arts Center's Expanded Gallery for African Art

Written by Perry Banister Monday, 26 October 2009 20:21

STANFORD, CA.- Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University presents “Longing for Sea-Change,” a series of video works by contemporary artists living and working in Africa and its diasporas, opening this month and continuing through June 26, 2011. The video installations are on continuous view in the Center’s expanded gallery for African art. Each video in the “Longing for Sea-Change” series of installations contemplates the impact that memory, migration, and exile have had on the human landscape — both within and away from the African continent. Emotionally stirring and symbolic, the visual narratives address broader issues of humanity in moments of upheaval, fragmentation, and transition.

They especially consider the impact that colonial, settler, and migration histories have had on localized populations and the links between peoples and places across the world. Yet, the works are also deeply personal in presenting individual perspectives and recollections that float between a sense of nostalgia, a longing for transformation, and the desire to belong.

The series begins with "Spirit of ’76" (6 minutes, 24 seconds), a video installation made by South African artist Berni Searle in 2007, on view through January 10, 2010. The second installment in this series, "Seeking Refuge" (5 minutes 56 seconds) was made by Searle in 2008 and is on view January 13 – June 6, 2010. Other video installations follow through June 26, 2011.

In February, Searle travels to Stanford University to speak on “Seeking Sites of Refuge,” a free artist talk that takes place Thursday, February 11, at 5:30 pm in the Cantor Arts Center auditorium. Searle, one of South Africa’s leading video artists, will talk about exploring ideas of belonging and displacement in her recent work. “Longing for Sea-Change” is made possible by the Phyllis C. Wattis Program Fund.

In addition, small-scale devotional arts from the 25th – 30th "Dynasties of Ancient Egypt" are now in the Yansouni Family Gallery of Egyptian Art, temporarily relocated to the alcove at the entrance to the gallery for African art. The new display includes a small bronze of the beneficial mother-goddess Isis (7th – 4th-century BCE) and a painted limestone depiction of the sun and sky god Ra-Horakhty (c. 700 BCE).

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