Preview: OpenArtExchange x African Food Festival
African dishes, preview
17 juli: Sneak Preview AFF & Rachel Malaika Reveal
Join us on Friday 17th July, from 17:00 in the gallery with a special sneak preview of our curation for the African Food Festival (AFF). During this evening, we will also unveil the textile works of Rachel Malaika from the exhibition Sacred.
The African Food Festival is an annual celebration of African culture through food, music, and art in the heart of Rotterdam. This year OpenArtExchange is proud to participate with a pop-up exhibition on the festival grounds, in the Museumpark of Rotterdam. To mark the occasion, we invite you to an exclusive preview of the artworks that we will be featured at the festival. In the spirit of the AFF, we will be serving a variety of African food and snacks.
The evening is also an opportunity of (re-)visiting our newest exhibition, Sacred, with the special reveal of Rachel Malaika's textile works. Throughout the evening, the OpenArtExchange team will host short guided tours of the exhibition, offering insight into the artists and the stories behind the works in an intimate setting.
We look forward to welcoming you for an evening of art, conversation, and celebration!
Can't be there on 17th July in the gallery?
Come to the African Food Festival Rotterdam 18 and 19 July at Museumpark, we will be showing our special exhibition!
Sacred - Rachel Malaika
Rachel Malaika
1986, DRC
Rachel Malaika is a visual artist from the DRC whose multidisciplinary practice spans photography, installation, and textile-based works. Defining herself as an activist photographer, she engages critically with representations of women and children in Congolese society. Malaika confronts the narratives perpetuated by colonial-era photography through textile interventions and embroidery. As such, she reclaims spaces of power, offering renewed visibility and agency to the female figures represented. In Sacred, she employs self-portraiture to challenge the historical erasure of African women, restoring their visibility within narratives of power, memory, and representation.