Venice Biennial 2024, Charmaine Watkiss, Indie Choudhury, Unit London
Venice Biennial 2024; Charmaine Watkiss; Unit London
Botanical legacy; ethnobotany; emancipatory art; art and nature; charmaine watkiss; black british artist; plant warrior women

The warriors way: holds sacred all resourceful virtues, 2024

African Caribbean Artist; ethnobotany; qilombo; ancestral healing; charmaine watkiss

The warrior mediates all the forces of nature, 2024

emancipatory art; colonial resistance; womens empowerment; maroonage; afrofuturism; ethnobotany; plant embodiment; warrior women

The warriors way: safeguarding the imperishable spirits of nature, 2024

During the 60th Venice Biennale, Unit presents In Praise of Black Errantry, a group exhibition that celebrates the Black radical imagination. Curated by Indie A. Choudhury (The Courtauld Institute of Art), the exhibition brings together works by 19 modern and contemporary Afro-diasporic artists.
On view from 17 April–29 June, In Praise of Black Errantry is curated by Indie A. Choudhury (The Courtauld Institute of Art) with assistant curator Kelsey Corbett (Unit). The exhibition will be held in the Palazzo Pisani S. Marina, a 15th-century palazzo located in the Cannaregio area of Venice and depicted in a Renaissance painting by Jacopo de’ Barbari. The palazzo was previously host to the Diaspora Pavilion in 2017 and the Croatia National Pavilion in 2015.
The accompanying exhibition catalogue will include contributions by the curator Indie A. Choudhury, Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art, The Courtauld Institute of Art; artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase; award-winning poet Roger Robinson; and Robert G. O’Meally, the Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University.
In Praise of Black Errantry marks Unit’s inaugural presentation at the Venice Biennale as part of the gallery’s continuing commitment to research-led initiatives that nurture artists and contribute to contemporary cultural discourse beyond conventional programming structures.
Artists:
Stacey Gillian Abe, Winston Branch, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Rachel Jones, Hilda Kortei, Sola Olulode, Anya Paintsil, and Charmaine Watkiss alongside works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Boswell, Adelaide Damoah, Paul Dash, Miranda Forrester, Claudette Johnson, Keith Piper, Hank Willis Thomas, and Joy Yamusangie. The exhibition also presents a new site-specific sound installation by Trevor Mathison
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