Join artist Zana Masombuka for a talk about her first London solo exhibition with Harold Offeh, interdisciplinary artist and tutor in Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art. Masombuka, also known as ‘Ndebele Superhero’ discusses her practice and new body of photographs, sculptures and short film which draw upon her experiences of Ndebele ceremony and ritual. Masombuka explores the intersection of identity and culture, as she creates arresting visual narratives imbued with traditional Ndebele lore and symbolism, which the artist employs to bring about a radical re-examination of the individual’s position within the wider community. The artist’s exhibition Nges’rhodlweni: A Portal for Black Joy continues until the 30th of September, 2023 at October Gallery.

Harold Offeh is known for working in a range of media, including photography and performance. He has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally including: Tate Britain and Tate Modern; Wysing Art Centre; Studio Museum Harlem, New York; MAC VAL, France; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark; and Art Tower Mito, Japan. Currently a Senior Tutor in Fine Art MFA at The Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, he also lectures in Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art, London.

October Gallery and Trebuchet Magazine are pleased to present Ecological Envisioning: Aubrey Williams, Ecology and the Artistic Lens. This talk will explore the relationship between art and ecology, focussing on Aubrey Williams’ avid interest in science, advancement of technology and its impact on civilisations.

The discussion will reveal insights from Dr Giulia Smith - Art Historian and Research Fellow at Ruskin School of Art Oxford, who is an authority on Aubrey Williams, and the conservation practitioner, Dr John Fanshawe, who is Senior Strategy Adviser at BirdLife International, and leads an arts, science and conservation programme for the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. The talk will be moderated by Kailas Elmer, Managing Editor of Trebuchet and hosted by October Gallery within the current exhibition, Aubrey Williams: Future Conscious.

Aubrey Williams, often cited as being ahead of his time, trained as an Agricultural Officer in Guyana in the early 1940s. The exhibition Future Conscious spans three decades — from the 1960s to the 1980s — and highlights Williams’ prescient understanding of, and concerns regarding the mounting problems impacting environmental and ecological stability.

The talk will finish at 8.30 pm, so that the audience can view the exhibition, with refreshments available until 9.00 pm. There will be disabled access, as the talk will take place on the Gallery's ground floor.

About Trebuchet

Trebuchet is a biannual contemporary art publication which reveals the new ideas, voices, and innovations that define our age. Inspiring the artist and informing the collector, with each issue they investigate a specific artistic field uncovering the crucial works shaping the future of art.

Trebuchet is the critical review for creative minds navigating the world as an artist, collaborator, and decision maker. Create. Curate. Collect.

October Gallery presents Imruh Bakari (Writer and Film Maker) and Dr Ian Dudley (Visiting Fellow in Art History at the University of Essex) together in conversation, in celebration of its latest Aubrey Williams exhibition, Future Conscious.

The conversation will focus on Imruh Bakari’s long friendship with Aubrey Williams , including time spent on location, in the UK and Guyana, gathering footage for what became his influential documentary film, The Mark of the Hand - Aubrey Williams (1987). This remarkable film followed Williams’ journey to his birthplace of Georgetown, Guyana. The film traces the course of Williams’ surprisingly emotional return to Hosororo, in Guyana’s Northwest interior region, to visit the Indigenous Warrau people who originally inspired him to pursue his lifelong path as an artist. Ian Dudley has written and published scholarly papers on the art of Aubrey Williams, paying particular attention to the Indigenous cultures of Central America and Guyana. Dudley’s insightful publications have generated fresh insight into some of the varied petroglyphic elements seen within Williams' paintings.

This wider discussion will address Williams’ understanding of pre-Columbian histories and cultures, and his prescient foreboding of alienation from the natural world in contrast to Indigenous knowledge systems and their reversible impact on the delicate ecosystemic balance upon which planetary sustainability depends.

Iranian artist Golnaz Fathi will discuss her new body of work in the exhibition: No rain will put out this fire. The talk examines the artist’s career, creative process and artistic practice beyond the boundaries of pure calligraphic form as it expands into the gesture of modernist abstraction.