Fak’ugesi Exhibition launches virtual 3D gallery to honor digital artists

The Fak’ugesi 3D Gallery digital festival will profile work from 40 digital artists who will showcase in the virtual gallery space, with eight works to be displayed at the physical gallery at Tshimologong. Over the years, Fak’ugesi Festival has showcased innovative work from over 400 digital artists from various digital creative sectors and countries across the continent.

To celebrate seven years of the Fakugesi Digital Innovation Festival, an alumni catalog will be launched at the exhibition. The catalog is a celebration of the enormous talent of selected digital creators who have made a significant contribution to the festival over the years.

“The gallery space is a virtual hall of glass-fronted 3D graphic shipping containers, each home to a curated exhibition packed with explosive, contemplative and experimental work across games, digital art, animation and more. Everyone has put in a lot of work to ensure that the exhibition and alumni catalog provides a broad and beautiful view of the digital creative industries in Africa today, and one that we are proud to have helped build.” Says festival curator Fak’ugesi , Dillion Phiri.

From Africa and the diaspora

The exhibition celebrates some of the most indispensable work digital artists across Africa have created by documenting innovations and culture on the continent. The results of Fak’ugesi Labs are also exhibited at the gallery, including an interactive animation created by a group of Johannesburg-based creatives and led by Fak’ugesi, Arts Research Africa and City of Bogota artist in residence, Crila Regina from Colombia, Bogota.

Audiences will get a chance to explore contemporary digital photography through the faith-focused work of South Africans Sanele and Puleng Mongane in the “No Boundaries” exhibition. In addition to digital artworks developed based on data findings by selected artists who participated in Digital Superpower! Lab. The digital superpower! Lab is an initiative that aims to empower women and the LGBTQIA+ community to understand gender safety issues in their environment.

There is captivating work by animators who dig into Africa’s folklore canon, with projects such as Deidre Janties’ Stories In Die Wind and Formation Animation’s Azania Rises, both part of the Fak’ugesi Stories exhibition. Augmented Reality artists Xabiso Vili and Sonwabo Valishaya bring a thought-provoking exhibition to physical space, Re/Member your Descendants. The exhibition asks the question if you were an ancestor, what would your descendants yell at you for?

BetterShared, Founder and CEO Swakara Atwell-Bennet says: “It’s been a great opportunity to work on the Fak’ugesi Festival. It’s been our biggest gallery building and we’ve also really been able to push the concept and create something quite different from what is already out there in terms of virtual galleries.”

The physical gallery at Tshimologong will provide an opportunity for the media and the general public to engage with some of the creatives.