INNATE: FUTURE BLOOMS: Featured in the group show Bridge at La Villa Rouge curated by Mupho for Dak'Art Biennale 2018

Galerie Number 8 presents Innate : Future Blooms, a dialogue in photographs between artists Djeneba Aduayom and David Uzochukwu. Celebrated for his surreal depictions of human vulnerability, Uzochukwu’s bold series, “Ripe”, explores the delicate moment when we first resurface after plunging into periods of despair. Hostile natural landscapes appear to birth a weathered but fortified man, reminding us that cathartic places are at once dark and fertile. On the other end of the conversation is Aduayom, a former dancer who was forced by injury to find another medium through which to express herself. That led her to photography, a period of mourning and healing, and then to her series,“Capsulated.” Each photograph is a graceful representation of the evolved, superhuman that emerges from painful experiences. Her subjects still rely on the safety of their interior lives (the bubble), but they can now see out and beyond – to a reimagined future. What unites both artists’ work is the idea that an inborn strength has seen their subjects through and propelled them, emboldened, towards whatever lies ahead