Seven Voices, Five Nations: Absa’s Pan-African Art Series Tells the Stories of a Continent.
Absa is proud to unveil a powerful new series of gallery exhibitions spotlighting the Absa L’Atelier Ambassadors—rising stars in African contemporary art whose work captures the depth, complexity and brilliance of the continent. As part of their L’Atelier journey, these artists are awarded fully sponsored solo exhibitions, offering them the rare and valuable opportunity to professionally showcase their work in leading galleries across Africa.
This prestigious exhibition series is a cornerstone of the Absa L’Atelier programme, now in its 39th year—one of the longest-running and most respected visual arts development platforms on the continent. Through Absa’s continued investment in creative talent, the Absa L’Atelier provides young African artists not just with resources and mentorship, but with the public stage their work deserves.
At the heart of the programme is Absa’s belief that every artist’s story matters. These exhibitions are more than just a celebration of visual brilliance—they are platforms for storytelling, cultural reflection, and creative exchange. Absa believes there is more than one side to who people are. Individuals are not defined solely by numbers, job titles, or the roles assigned by society—they carry dreams, passions, and untold motivations that shape their journeys. Absa sees these stories, recognising that the real opportunities lie within people and their lived experiences.
The 2025 Absa Gallery Exhibition Series
The series opens in Johannesburg with a powerful and deeply personal exhibition by Bulumko Mbete, the 2023 Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto winner. Her solo show sets the tone for the journey ahead—inviting viewers to reflect on memory, inheritance, and the quiet echoes of the past through a body of work that is as intimate as it is expansive. The exhibition is scheduled to take place 24 May – 27 June 2024 at Gallery Momo, 52 7th Avenue, Parktown North, Johannesburg
Hands dialogue with the spirit as earth meets their embrace. Clay surrenders to touch, transforming into beads that contemplate ornament. This medium, drawn from our planet, undergoes metamorphosis. It evolves and echoes the forms in nature’s intricate patterns.
In 1997, Mbete’s grandfather embarked on a road trip along the eastern and central parts of South Africa. Mbete reflects on this guided route, and on the experiences, memories and inheritances that remain from a life lived. She ponders nature’s ability to conform to the narratives that we conjure and contemplates an intangible human voice. Geological echoes of time, memory and material encounter her gestures, which aim to bridge worlds. Through four installations, Mbete contemplates the terrain of familial memory and narrative.
In Sojourning, a collaborative sound installation with Kamil Hassim, Mbete uses the act of memory to reconstruct the sonic landscape of her grandfather’s journey. The piece was developed through conversations with her mother and aunt, their anecdotes and recollections serving as fragments from which a past is reassembled. Sound is the vessel through which loss is made present.
In Our Mother’s Gardens engages with the 2021 documentary of the same name. The work explores the intricate relationships Black women navigate with maternal figures. It examines the architecture of closeness, vulnerability and struggle that forms the tethers of mother–daughter bonds, and reveals both tenderness and resilience in these intimate connections. The installation contains a collaboration with The Herd Designs.
Earthsong, Earth’s Time performs choreography with nature. Mbete contemplates what alchemy nature may offer in return for the act of performing generational traditions of embodied knowledge, labour and exchange with the natural world.
Reciting Memory turns toward iconography and gesture in ceramic forms, marking Mbete’s exploration of a new material language in her practice. Earth transformed by hands renders memory tangible through the traces left on it.
The handmade sculptures, beads and naturally dyed fabrics preserve meditative gestures embedded in their surfaces. Mbete records presence and documents the relationship between the self, nature and making practices. These works think through coexistence and what it means to leave our mark while honouring what came before us.
As part of her prize for winning the Gerard Sekoto Award, Bulumko also spent three months in Paris at the Cité Internationale des Arts — a prestigious residency made possible through a partnership between the French Embassy in South Africa, the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS), the South African National Association for the Visual Arts (SANAVA), and Absa.
Further exhibitions in the series include:
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Badru Taofeek, 2022 Absa L’Atelier Ambassador – AF Lagos, Nigeria (June). Badru Taofeek’s work channels the rhythm and complexity of urban life. Through bold visual language and layered textures, he captures the resilience, energy, and contradictions of Lagos’s streets and communities.
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Emmanuel Idowu, 2023 Absa L’Atelier Ambassador – AF Lagos, Nigeria (July) Emmanuel Idowu offers an introspective take on modern African identity, blending storytelling, symbolism, and vibrant colour to interrogate notions of belonging, memory, and transformation within the city’s ever-changing landscape.
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Gandor Collins, 2022 Absa L’Atelier Ambassador – Ghana (July) Collins’s work bridges the historical and the contemporary, drawing from Ghana’s past to reflect on its evolving artistic future.(Venue to be confirmed.)
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Adelheid Franciwicz, 2021 Absa L’Atelier Ambassador – AVA Gallery, Cape Town (August). Exploring themes of identity, displacement, and belonging, Franciwicz’s exhibition reflects on the personal and collective architectures of home.
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Bulumko Mbete, 2023 Absa L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto winner – Willem Humpries Art Gallery, Kimberley (September). Bulumko Mbete continues her exploration of memory, inheritance, and material storytelling with her solo exhibition Like the sky, I’ve been too quiet in Kimberley.
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Joe Gayi, 2023 Absa L’Atelier Ambassador – Amasaka Gallery, Uganda (November). With sensitivity and detail, Gayi captures the essence of Uganda’s natural and cultural landscapes—creating work that is as grounded as it is graceful.
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Edward Lawerh, 2023 Absa L’Atelier Ambassador – Ghana (November) Lawerh’s works consider the intersection of tradition and modernity, exploring how knowledge, symbols, and practice adapt in the digital age. (Venue to be confirmed.)
These exhibitions are more than milestones—they are launching pads. As a fully integrated part of the Absa L’Atelier Ambassador experience, they give each artist the platform to share their stories with the world, engage new audiences, and take the next step in their creative careers.
Through this series, Absa reaffirms its belief in the power of African art — and its commitment to being a catalyst for creativity, culture, and progress. To real life and untold stories. Because Absa sees your story, and it inspires us — your story matters.
#WeSeeYourStory #YourStoryMatters
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