The all-black women art collective challenging the gallery space

It’s clear from the pictures off the iQhiya exhibition on at the Kwazulu-Natal Society of the Arts gallery in Durban, that the gallery space has been transformed on multiple levels. Sassy, textured, challenging, feminist, earthy and complex, there is no single, simple narrative here.

“We are iQhiya – young, black women who collided paths in the institution. We make art,” reads the artists’ statement. “There is a lot to say that wouldn’t fit into this exhibition, and it’s debatable whether you are paying attention in any case – because blackness and womanness is absentness.”

The group of 11 artists met at art school in Cape Town and, in a first of its kind, have started staging art shows together that are curated by the artists themselves.