Afikaris

“Individually, the elements are fragile. Together, they become resilient. What protects us is not isolation, but connection.”
— Ozioma Onuzulike

In a recent interview, the artist speaks about clay’s enduring influence on his practice, the histories embedded in materials, and the idea of what he calls a “fragile strength”.

Drawing on an Igbo proverb - “A single broomstick breaks quickly; but a bundle of broomsticks does not break easily” - his sculptures are composed of thousands of fragile ceramic elements joined into expansive structures whose strength emerges through collective form.

For Onuzulike, that dual condition, durability combined with vulnerability, has become a metaphor for human existence itself. “We survive through connection, patience, repair, and transformation. That is ultimately what my work seeks to express”.

🔗 Read the full conversation via the link in bio.

•

Shields by Ozioma Onuzulike
📅 Through 8 August, 2026
📍AFIKARIS Gallery, 7 rue Notre Dame de Nazareth, 75003 Paris, France

61st Venice Biennale | Democratic Republic of Congo Pavillion

Last week marked the opening of the 61st Venice Biennale « In Minor Keys » curated by Koyo Kouoh, alongside the inauguration of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s pavilion, for which Geraldine Tobe was selected.

The exhibition « Simba Moto! Seize the Fire! Saisis le feu! », curated by and presented in the Ancient Refectory of the Dominican convent of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo, brings together nine artists from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its diaspora.

Together, they call for new narratives that, when confronted with contemporary crises, resist discourses of absence, suffering, and death. Drawing strength from ancestral worldviews, radical Congolese imaginaries of the 20th and 21st centuries, and Black liberation archives forged in the modern era and continuously engaged in dialogue with Africa, the exhibition proposes powerful new ways of imagining the present and the future.

•

Biennale Arte 2026
📆 9 May — 22 November, 2026
📍 Antico Refettorio - Scuola Grande di San Marco


•

Curator: Nadia Yala Kisukidi: 
Commissioner: Cindy Teme Makiana 
Curatorial Team: Johnny Leya .eu, Aimé Mpane .aime, Jean Kamba 
Artists: Sammy Baloji , Arlette Bashizi , Patrick Bongoy , Damso , Gosette Lubondo , Nelson Makengo , Aimé Mpane .aime, Léonard Pongo  and Géraldine Tobe 
Organizer: Ministry of Art, Culture and Heritage of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , Her Excellency Yolande Elebe Ma Ndembo, Fondation Damso 
Location: 
Graphic design: Rimasùu Studio 

📷 Credit Antoine Assumani. Courtesy of Pavillon RDCongo

We are happy to share some information about Matthew Eguavoen’s residency at .ateliers in Accra, Ghana.

Eguavoen uses his work to address the societal, economic, and political views across the complex intersectionality that Nigerians face in different facets of life. The constraint of societal ideology about life, on human existence and survival.
“I am inspired by human experience because it is my understanding that experience is what shape us as humans.”

dot.ateliers is an initiative founded in 2022 by Amoako Boafo dedicated to contemporary creation, experimentation, and dialogue across disciplines.

•
ateliers