Antananarivo – Renowned British-Nigerian visual artist Yinka Shonibare is celebrating his first solo exhibition on the African continent, at the age of 62 – an explosion of colour that raises questions of identity and challenges the way we see the post-colonial world.
"Can we look at the sculpture of your Refugee Astronaut? Could you tell us if the way it has been installed suits you?"
"Yes. Wow! It’s great, it looks amazing!"
A few hours before the opening of the exhibition, Shonibare is standing in front of his life's works, in the bright rooms of the Fondation H contemporary art centre in Madagascar's capital Antananarivo.
From floor to ceiling, his creations dazzle with their vivid colours and playful irony. "It's fantastic to be here. It's really great to have a solo show here, in Africa," he told RFI.
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The exhibition – entitled Safiotra ("hybridity") – tells stories of blended identities and offers an alternative reading of the world in post-colonial times, challenging commonly accepted views.
"My work is also about trying to acknowledge the contribution that Africans have made, because when I studied history it was mostly about European achievements and not so much about Africans and what they have done," Shonibare explained.
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"So my work is always trying to celebrate the achievement of Africans and the contribution that Africans have made – not just in Africa, just through world culture generally. Some might call it, you know, 'deconstructing the canon'. But I think it's important that all of our voices can be heard and registered."
Dominique Tiana-Razafindratsima, a professor of humanities at the University of Antananarivo and director of the Centre for Research and Studies on Identity Constructions, was asked by Fondation H to reflect on the perception of safiotra in Malagasy culture.
"Something that is safiotra for the Malagasy, because it is 'mixed' is seen rather negatively, as the opposite of purity, of authenticity," explains Rarafindratsimba.
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"Yinka Shonibare’s works may allow us to question ourselves a bit and accept this intersection as a part of our history, and that hybridity is the very foundation of human and especially Malagasy identity."
It's a concept Shonibare agrees with. "When you create a kind of a binary opposition, actually that's why people go to war because they don't understand the other person. The idea of hybridity is to say that actually everybody has a contribution to world culture."
► The article was adapted from the podcast RFI Reportage Afrique produced by Sarah Théaud.
