In the western media universe, African conflict stories are theatrical productions. They follow familiar scripts performed by familiar characters; they outrage us yet never quite seem to make us suspend all disbelief. Did the Rwandan genocide really happen? It was on the way to being forgotten until the postelection killings in Kenya jogged our memories. When did the conflict in the Congo end? Is it still going on? For how long? How much longer? Conflict fatigue, among other social ailments, disappears the Congo from daily discourse. Perhaps the problem is not that the situations are unbelievable, but that the characters are; they have degenerated into cartoons. Key characters in the conflict scripts are overdrawn villains and barely perceptible victims; bloated rulers with oily smiles gazing smugly at ashy, emaciated subjects; ethnocentric demagogues and herds of human sheep who follow them unthinkingly to slaughter, then be slaughtered. One wonders if this is what life under conflict is all about. Could it be my life? When represented as a weak, inchoate, silent or uncritical mass, Africa’s citizens living in conflict situations are stripped of their fundamental humanity; the very quality that permits us to empathize with strangers across boundaries of space and race. What is needed now is clear-eyed insight into the lives of women, men, boys, and girls who find themselves fated to exist in very extraordinary times. Conflicted is a challenge to know the other in a most familiar way.

Curators:

Eto Oro - Director es ORO // Polymedia Projects

Abosede George, PhD - Assistant Professor History/Africana Studies Barnard College-Columbia University

Media Inquiries: Jill Goldsberry, Golden Media jill@esorogallery.com 646.283.0947

Selected Statements

AMERICAN WET DREAMS SPECIAL PERFORMANCE INTERVENTION ON NOVEMBER 4^th 6-7:30PM at es ORO

Rafael Sanchez >>> www.exitart.com >>> Sanchez on Art 21 Rafael Sanchez is a performance artist who often takes his work to the streets and other unconventional spaces. In his performances, Sanchez frequently subjects his body to extreme stress and pain to materialize ideas of memory, spirituality and endurance. In an early work titled Back to Africa (2000), Sanchez wandered around New Jersey in white face, carrying a suitcase and waiting for a bus that never arrived. In a more recent work, Calienté/Frio (2007) the artist traced the migration process of two women from Cuba to America during the 1960s. In Conflicted, Sanchez will execute American Wet Dreams, a new performance intervention on November 4th at es ORO from 6- 7:30 PM. The performance comments on the existence of a political self and its literal and/or figurative awakening. Each individual is obligated to awaken his or her political identity and explore the issues that impact his or her own reality; not the reality of a political party or someone else.

“Road Kill”	Maluwa Williams-Myers >>> http://www.maluwa.org We live in a place where we have forgotten the ways of our predecessors. A corporate, money hungry nation that has been built with the blood and on backs of our ancestors. Our attempts to break into a world where we may not be welcomed, have been ones that sustained very few yet leave the rest as road kill. The "New World Order" has also become one in which we continue to remain separated from one another, while for some it is a place where they remain "asleep" in constant, internal conflict.
“Revelation (Bamiyan at Ground Zero)”	Ard Berge >>> http://www.ArdBerge.com Ard Berge's work explores the American experience within a global and historical context. Juxtaposing aspects of the past with imagery of the present, the work invites the viewer to reflect upon the social and cultural forces that shape American identity. Addressing seminal topics such as slavery, civil rights and non-violence movements, conflict in the Middle East, terrorism, global climate change, and the struggle over earth’s limited resources, each painting in the series examines imagery embedded in the collective American conscience and reflects upon its underlying significance. At the center of this landscape painting of lower Manhattan is the void of Ground Zero where the Twin Towers once stood. The bridge that traverses the site is one of the few surviving structures of that complex. Juxtaposed against this devastated landscape are the towering Buddhas once embedded in the Bamiyan landscape of Afghanistan destroyed by the Taliban six months before September 11th. The desecration of their spectral fragmented appearance fills the void.
“1998, We Wear Our Flesh Like Flames”	Theodore A. Harris >>> http://www.ourfleshofflames.com As an artist I create work to act as a lobbyist for liberation- not to hold up oppressive regimes and an oligarchy that resolves conflict with sanctions and nooses of war. It is with these conclusions I see war as a map of wounds turning flesh and bones into glue. This is the reason the protagonist in my confrontational collages are inverted images of the Pentagon and US Capitol buildings, intended to be read as an invective critique of blind patriotism.
“Does My Baby Have Aids”	Sophie Sanders >>> http://www.sophiesanders.com In “Does My Baby Have AIDS?”, Sophie Sanders wrestles with issues affecting all women, but particularly those in war-torn parts of Africa. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, soldiers and thugs use rape as a form of violent intimidation against civilians with devastating affects to women, girls, and families, and contributing to the spread of HIV. While many of us living in the U.S. hear reports and statistics about rape and HIV in Africa, do we identify with those affected? Or do we choose not to know? For Sanders, sexual assaults affect all women, across the boundaries of race, ethnicity, and geography, and are also an important part of our history, since so many African slaves were raped and forced to bear the children of their masters during the history of slavery in the Americas. Suggesting these painful realities, Sanders’ seductive textile surfaces often incorporate “African” printed fabrics, and pay tribute to the perseverance of her African sisters, who overcome overwhelming obstacles and hardships to nourish their families and keep creative spirits alive.
“Untitled”	Githinji Mbire >>> Link to Artworks Afrika in everyway is my primary medium. My paintings on canvas, sculptures, sound, and video installations are all connected to Afrika. They exist as ideas and associations, ideologies and representations of the continent. Afrika plays a very important role in our country’s culture not to mention what the land offers to the rest of the world. However we receive negative misconceptions of Afrika in heavy dosages. My work aims to redefine the land and the people critically by offering my views on it’s culture in a dynamic presentation. Ase
‘Revolver”	Carla Pando The artefact is both threatening and presumably indestructible. This revolver is actually a fragile replica handmade in onion skin. It’s layers are carefully stuck together. Despite all layers we are covered with not to feel threatened. Not to feel the other’s tears as yours.
	Jeff Stillman I made this Drawing when I was in a period of crisis . I had been forced to leave my home in the Lower East Side of NYC. It is A "DOUBLE SELF PORTRAIT". It was my intent to show the changes homelessness had caused in me. The primary image facing and engaging the viewer; is me as I was before losing my home. The image in profile behind; is me after I lived in a tiny office at #5 Beekman Place for two years. Obviously I had lost forty pounds and had gone completely insane. The Architectural elements shown, signify a longing for my old home at #417 East Ninth Street {shown dissolving into the foreground character} and the hope which kept me alive. The vision of myself in profile at the back is looking down on a church which gave me solace in the two years that I was on the run. Then I moved to Jersey City and got better. It is with a great sense of humility and wonder that I am able to participate in this wonderful exhibition.