The Minister of Arts and Cultural Heritage, Mr Avinash Teeluck, inaugurated, this afternoon, an art exhibition on the theme ‘Our History, Our Heritage’ at the Nelson Mandela Centre for African Culture in La Tour Koenig.
This exhibition is being organised by the Ministry of Arts and Cultural Heritage in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Centre for African Culture Trust Fund and the National Art Gallery in the context of the commemoration of the 187th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery. It will be opened to the public for free from 14 February to 11 March 2022, on Mondays to Fridays.
The Chairperson of the Nelson Mandela Centre for African Culture Trust Fund, Mr Oliver Michael Thomas, and other personalities were present on this occasion.
In a statement following the inauguration ceremony, Minister Teeluck recalled that La Tour Koenig Tower, located in the premises of the Nelson Mandela Centre for African Culture, was renovated back in October 2021 and now provided an art space (Lespas Lar) to artists to exhibit their work.
“The theme chosen for the art exhibition,” he highlighted, “revolves around slavery and helps to promote and preserve the African culture, which is in line with the mandate of the Nelson Mandela Centre for African Culture.”
Minister Teeluck also seized this opportunity to point out that Cabinet had agreed to declare 8 February as the Bhojpuri Gammat Day, the day on which Sona Noyan passed away; and 21 February as the Seggae Day, the day on which Joseph Réginald Topize (Kaya) passed away.
The art exhibition
This exhibition brings together the original works of some 30 artists in several mediums including sculptures, paintings, videos, photography and installations.
These contemporary Mauritian artists have chosen to use emotions to make a visual comment about some concepts of slavery. The outcomes are powerful and potent and manage to stir both our conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings.
Some works are brutal in their honesty, some have taken a spiritual aspect, some demand an intellectual response, some are carved from a deep, inherited consciousness and some are just the outcome of a sense of outrage.
Moreover, the organisers are also presenting reproductions of artworks from artist Hervé Masson on this particular era of the development of our nation.
