The Art Gallery of York University is pleased to present an exhibition featuring a performance as well as interactive, kinetic, and static sculptures by Munya Madzima. Subverting colonial signifiers such as the gun, the camera, and the bible, Madzima addresses the violent history and legacy of imperial domination in Africa. Championed by the First World as an agent of modernization and advancement, technology is strategically targeted by Madzima in a series of deconstructive interventions which expose how it has been deployed as a coercive tool for imperial expansion and subjugation.

A series of static spherical sculptures convey the artist’s ongoing interest in the form and meaning of the circle specifically for the way in which these shapes allude to ideas of ‘wholeness’ and ‘completeness.’ Much of Madzima’s work revolves around questions of diasporic identity – the reality of being in between two cultures, without ever being firmly rooted in either one. This state of in-between-ness or liminality is inextricably tied to the experience of dislocation and serves as the thematic focus for much of his practice.

Every year the AGYU hosts two thesis exhibitions of graduate students from York University’s Department of Visual Arts. These exhibitions, profiling some of York University’s leading artists, are an extension of the AGYU’s commitment to the development of Canada’s visual arts professionals.