Radical Familiar. A different kind of aesthetic encounter
In this installment of the masterclass, Rabia Abba Omar was in conversation with Gabrielle Goliath as she shared on “Radical Familiar. A different kind of aesthetic encounter.” This discussion of the AVReQ Masterclass stirred a profound contemplation on the intricate threads of representation, encounter, and response. Gabrielle directed her focus towards the realm of radical familiarity, black decolonial feminist repair, and the nuanced histories of black femme bodies. Through a tapestry of insights, the discourse offered a panorama of illumination, revealing pivotal junctures.
Gabrielle Goliath situates her practice within the histories, life worlds and present-day conditions of black, brown, femme and queer life, refusing its terminal demarcation within a paradigm of racial-sexual violence. The conditions of hope that underscore the social encounters of her work ask for what she terms a life-work of mourning – “for to imagine and seek to realise the world otherwise is to bear with us those lost to or still surviving an order of violence we hope to and must transform”. Goliath’s immersive installations have shown across South Africa and internationally. She has won a number of awards including a Future Generation Art Prize/Special Prize (2019), the Standard Bank Young Artist Award (2019), and the Institut Français, Afrique en Créations Prize at the Bamako Biennale (2017). Her work features in numerous public and private collections, including Kunsthalle Zürich, TATE Modern, Frac Bretagne, Iziko South African National Gallery, Johannesburg Art Gallery, and Wits Art Museum.