Fak’ugesi exhibition gallery honours digital artists from Africa, diaspora

Tshimologong Innovation Precinct and BetterShared will end the year on a high note with the launch of an all-new virtual 3D gallery space, which will run between 25 November 2021 and 04 January 2022.

The Fak’ugesi exhibition space is an engaging platform for discovering and purchasing some of the best contemporary art made by artists from Africa and the diaspora.

The digital festival 3D Gallery by Fak’ugesi will profile work from 40 digital artists who will showcase in the virtual gallery space, with 8 works to be featured at the physical gallery at Tshimologong.

Over the years Fak’ugesi Festival has displayed Innovative work from over 400 digital artists from various digital creative sectors and countries across the continent.

To celebrate 7 years of the Fak’ugesi Digital Innovation Festival, an alumni catalogue will be launched at the exhibition. The catalogue is a celebration of the immense talent of selected digital creatives who have made a significant contribution to the festival over the years.

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“The gallery space is a virtual hall of 3D graphic glass-front shipping containers, each home to a curated exhibition packed with explosive, contemplative and experimental work across gaming, digital art, animation, and more. Everyone has put in a lot of work to ensure that the exhibition and the alumni catalogue provide a broad and beautiful view of the digital creative industries in Africa today, and one that we are proud to have helped build,” says Fak’ugesi Festival Curator, Dillion S. Phiri.

The exhibition pays tribute to some of the most indispensable work digital artists across Africa have made by documenting innovations and culture on the continent. Outcomes of the Fak’ugesi Labs are also exhibited at the gallery, including an interactive animation created by a group of Johannesburg based creatives and led by Fak’ugesi, Arts Research Africa and City of Bogota artist in residence Crila Regina from Colombia, Bogota.

The public will get a chance to explore contemporary digital photography through the faith-focused work of South Africans Sanele and Puleng Mongane in the ‘No Boundaries’ exhibition. In addition to digital artworks were developed based on data findings by selected artists who took part in the Digital SUPERPOWER! Lab. The Digital SUPERPOWER! Lab is an initiative that aims to empower women and the LGBTQIA+ community to make sense of gender safety issues in their environment.

There is captivating work done by animators digging into Africa’s folklore canon, with projects like Deidre Janties’ Stories In Die Wind and Formation Animation’s Azania Rises, both part of the Fak’ugesi Stories exhibition.

Augmented Reality artists Xabiso Vili and Sonwabo Valishaya bring a thought-provoking exhibition to the physical space, Re/Member your Descendants. The exhibition asks the question if you were an ancestor, what would your descendants call upon you for?

BetterShared, Founder and CEO Swakara Atwell-Bennet says, “It’s been a great opportunity to work on Fak’ugesi Festival. It’s been our largest gallery build and we’ve also been able to really push the concept and create something quite different from what’s already out there in terms of virtual galleries.”

The physical gallery at Tshimologong will provide an opportunity for the media and general public to engage with some of the creatives.