Staging Africa through its own lens in Shanghai

The exhibition's second section, Movement, gathers works portraying the African migration within and beyond the continent and depicting the psychological change that contemporary African artists have been working to bring about.

For example, in Somnyama Ngonyama, a self-portraiture series that South African photographer Zanele Muholi has been working on since 2012, the artist is both the participant and image-maker. She transforms herself into various stereotypical images of black women such as a domestic worker, looking at the viewer with confidence and defiance. By turning the camera on herself and exaggerating the darkness of her skin tone in post-production, the artist reclaims her blackness and insists on being seen through her own perspective.