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LIVE at the AVA Gallery this year!
Join us for our AGM on Wednesday 12 October 2022, at 6 pm.
Featuring "The Milk of Dreams": invited speakers Virginia MacKenny and Igshaan Adams in conversation with AVA's vice chair person Boitumelo Tlhoaele to unpack the 59th Biennale di Venezia.
All paid-up members are invited to vote to elect new board members.
Nominated this year are:
Phokeng Setai
Winnie Sze
Olga Speakes
Oliver Nurock
Ina Voloshin
Keely Shinners
See bios and details below.
Date: 12 October 2022
Venue: AVA Gallery, 35 Church Street, Cape Town
Time: 6 - 7.30pm
Welcome: Everyone! Only paid-up members may vote. Refreshments will be served, compliments of Spier.
NOMINATIONS:
Phokeng Setai
Phokeng Setai is an independent writer, researcher and curator based in Cape Town. He is an alumnus of the ICI (Independent Curators International), RAW Material Company in Dakar, Senegal and a former researcher at ZeitzMOCAA. Setai is currently completing his doctoral dissertation at the Center for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
Winnie Sze
I believe that independent art spaces outside of commercial and socio-political remits, such as the AVA, are important for the art scene in South Africa. At the same time, such spaces must find funding and ensure content relates to the current zeitgeist. These are challenges I have had experience dealing with, most recently as a former Council member of the Friends of Iziko SA National Gallery, as well as running my own not-for-profit projects such as Social Fabric SA, a collaborative platform for visual artists, designers and textile manufacturers. Challenges also offer opportunities for growth and development, and that is what motivates me to apply to join you as a board member.
Olga Speakes
Olga Speakes is a Cape Town based art historian, curator and art consultant. Her latest curatorial project, A Line Beyond, examined the legacy of drawing in multimedia works by leading contemporary southern African artists, and took place at the AVA in December – January 2021/22. She curated exhibitions at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo, at the Constitution Hill in Johannesburg and at Spier in Stellenbosch. She collaborated on curatorial projects at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town (Women’s Work and Penny Siopis Retrospective). Her research interests lie in the field of contemporary and modern art with an emphasis on diasporic artistic spaces and practices and investigations into time and history in postcolonial and post-soviet contexts. She is a regular guest lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town and has acted as a supervisor in the Honours in Curatorship programme at the CCA at the same university. She is currently also a guest lecturer at Rhodes University. She has contributed her writing to www.artthrob.co.za, Mail&Guardian (SA) and www.on-curating.org.
Keely Shinners
Keely Shinners is the editor of ArtThrob. Their art criticism has been published in ArtThrob, Africanah, ASAI and Mail & Guardian. Other essays have appeared in Electric Literature, Flypaper Lit, Mask Magazine and Full Stop as well as the journals James Baldwin Review and Safundi. Their fiction has been featured in The Sun Magazine and Peach Magazine. Their debut novel, How To Build a Home for the End of the World, was published by Perennial Press in 2022.
Oliver Nurock
Oliver has spent the past 11+ years in the NFP sector, working on a fulltime basis with NGO Lalela in his role as heading up all aspects of Partner Relationships and Marketing, with an active overlap into various other areas such as the coordination of all art fair activities and audio-visual management. During the previous 4-year period whilst living in Toronto with his wife Ann who had been relocated to Canada, Oliver was employed by global NGO Special Olympics Canada in the capacity of Social-Media coordinator, attending as a representative various international events in the USA and Canada. Prior to this, for a period of 35+ years, he was an active member of the International and national commercial film and stills industry; during this period, he co-founded various production companies, and executive produced a vast body of work in South Africa and worldwide. His main function and focus being the sourcing and nurturing of new directorial talent. In addition he represented the industry on various governmental commissions and organizations, including the World Producers Executive committee (Cannes).
Ina Voloshin
Ina has been involved in the arts for the past 30 + years. Having completed a degree in Philosophy and Art History at the University of California followed by an LLB in commercial law in the U.K., Ina has acted as a legal advisor on contracts and disputes relating to art acquisitions and artists collaborations as well as an occasional art consultant for individuals interested in starting a collection.
Since moving to South Africa in 2014, her focus has been on South African art with a particular interest in its contextualization within the global discourse. She is the founder and Chief Curator of the Marvol Gallery, an exhibition space promoting emerging South African artists and providing a platform to connect them to an international audience.
In addition to managing Marvol Gallery, Ina is one of the Executive directors of Marvol Development (Pty) Ltd and Hazendal Wine Estate. She has been managing Hazendal’s extensive private art collection of Eastern European art and its acquisition process focusing on modern and contemporary South African art.