This summer, curator, Ingrid LaFleur, brings Detroit-based artist collective, Complex Movements, to Johannesburg. The three-week exhibition, Where Paradise Grows, takes place at GoetheOnMain, the Goethe-Institut South Africa’s experimental project space in downtown Johannesburg.

Complex Movements consists of visual artist Wesley Taylor, lyricist and activist Invincible, creative technologist Carlos Garcia and prominent music producer Waajeed; whose projects include Platinum Pied Pipers and Tiny Hearts. In collaboration with architect Aaron Jones, they have designed a post-apocalyptic world using art installation, gaming techniques, video projection, interactive hip-hop performance and creative technology. This alternate reality investigates the relationship between complex science and social justice movements and explores a new theory for social change in the world.

The title of this exhibition, Where Paradise Grows, is a reference to the Asian Paradise Tree, an invasive non-indigenous flora of Detroit. It is a metaphor for contemporary colonization. Situated in the rapidly gentrifying Maboneng Precinct, Where Paradise Grows invites viewers to think more deeply about their own communities and share change-making ideas for their communities.

Where Paradise Grows is part of the larger curatorial project AFROTOPIA created by Ingrid LaFleur. AFROTOPIA uses the arts movement Afrofuturism as a tool for transformative education in Detroit and beyond.  AFROTOPIA is supported by the Knight Foundation.

Where Paradise Grows,
July 10-August 4, 2014.
Opening July 10 at 6:30 pm.
GoetheOnMain,
245, Main St, City & Suburban,
Johannesburg, SA.

Preview of Where Paradise Grows will take place in Detroit June 16, 2014, 6-9 pm at 7145 E. Davison, Detroit, MI, USA.

Curator Ingrid LaFleur, director of Maison LaFleur, has developed and organized art exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Known for her expertise in the arts movement Afrofuturism she is quoted in “Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture.” LaFleur has presented at Centre Pompidou (Paris), Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA), TEDxBrooklyn, TEDxDetroit, University of Bayreuth (Bayreuth, Germany), among others. Her essay, Detroit: A City of Superheroes is included in the book “A Detroit Anthology.”

GoetheonMain is the Goethe-Institut South Africa’s experimental project space in downtown Johannesburg. Its aim is to provide established as well as young and upcoming artists with a space and the possibility to independently develop experimental art projects. More information: www.goethe.de/goetheonmain 

www.detroitisafrotopia.com