Stay tuned for an exclusive limited series of Light Work presents: Everything is Connected - The Venice Biennale Edition sponsored by The Africa Institute, Global Studies University launching next week!

The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, is an interdisciplinary academic research institute dedicated to the study, research and documentation of Africa, its people, and its cultures; its complex past, present and future; and its manifold connections with the wider world. The Institute is conceived as a research-based think-tank, and a postgraduate studies institution (offering both master’s and Ph.D. programs), which aims to train a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African diaspora studies. The institute programs include international symposia and conferences, teaching of African languages and translation programs, active publishing of books and periodicals, visual art exhibitions and artist commissions, film and performance series, and community classes and outreach events.

For the series, Folasade Ologundudu, writer, curator, and the creator, host, and producer of Light Work Presents Everything is Connected, speaks with artists and curators of the African diaspora participating in this year's 60th edition of the Venice Biennale. Before, during the vernissage, and after the VIP opening of the Venice Biennale, Ologundudu engages in-depth conversation with artists and curators during this historic edition of the Biennale, presenting more African nations and artists than ever before.

Light Work is a creative media platform rooted at the intersection of art, education, and culture highlighting the work of emerging, mid career, and established artists from diverse communities and the art professionals who seek to amplify their achievements and contributions to society.

On this episode I'm joined by Kenturah Davis as we discuss her latest exhibition and her first solo in the UK with Stephen Friedman gallery. Kenturah Davis is a visual artist based between Los Angeles, California and Accra, Ghana. Her work oscillates between various facets of portraiture and design. Using text as a point of departure, she explores the fundamental role that language has in shaping how we understand ourselves and the world around us. This manifests in a variety of forms including drawings, textiles, sculpture and performances. Her work has been included in institutional exhibitions in Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. Davis earned her BA from Occidental College and MFA Yale University School of Art.

On this episode I'm joined by LaToya M. Hobbs. LaToya M. Hobbs is an artist, wife, and mother of two from Little Rock, AR, who is currently living and working in Baltimore, MD. She received her B.A. in Painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and M.F.A. in Printmaking from Purdue University. Her work deals with figurative imagery that addresses the ideas of beauty, cultural identity, and womanhood as they relate to women of the African Diaspora.

Her exhibition record includes numerous national and international venues, including the National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia; SCAD Museum of Art; Albright Knox Museum, and Sophia Wanamaker Galleries in San Jose, Costa Rica, among others. Her work is housed in private and public collections such as the Harvard Art Museum, Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, the National Art Gallery of Namibia, the Getty Research Institute, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Other accomplishments include the 2020 Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, a nomination for the 2022 Queen Sonja Print Award and a 2022 IFPDA Artis Grant. Hobbs is also a Professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a founding member of Black Women of Print, a collective whose vision is to make visible the narratives and works of Black women printmakers, past, present and future.