While we are embattled

Leveraging the questions posed and actions adopted by Black women artists and feminists, as well as practices related to Black radical theory, the curators confront and imagine the possibilities to reconnect, re-narrate, and regenerate ourselves with the physical and virtual spaces we occupy. The exhibition “While we are embattled” places the work and theories of Black radical praxis in the context of Hong Kong, elaborating on their implications and parallels around the world and examining questions of safety and retreat as generative modes of engagement, protection, and survival. In the face of a global pandemic and uprisings around the world related to racial inequalities, political violence, and ecological crisis, the exhibition emerges as an ongoing inquiry into the many impediments we face today, not only in connecting with one another, but also in suggesting a ground for future engagement and solidarity: what happens in this in-between state, which we currently find ourselves in, and what happens at this point of meeting during overlapping and ongoing periods of embattlement?

The exhibition brings together works by Noor Abed, Morehshin Allahyari, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Sara Haq, Junghun Kim, Carolyn Lazard, Sabelo Mlangeni, Jota Mombaça, Avery Z. Nelson, Temitayo Ogunbiyi, and a newly commissioned reading room presented by Contemporary And (C&) with a selection of materials from the Asia Art Archive Library Collection.