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Edition print of 40 by Chioma Ebinama for ‘SECCMA Trade: Details of Love’, a project curated Kostas Stasinopoulos organized by SECCMA Trust, with all profits in support of Emantes – International Lgbtqia+ Solidarity.
Chioma Ebinama is a Nigerian-American artist currently living in Athens, Greece. Her practice is centered around watercolours on paper, which explore drawing and visual narrative as a meditative practice and tool for self-liberation. Her work is influenced by a myriad of sources, from West African cosmology to classical art of the global South, to the visual language of Western esotericism and Eastern spiritual traditions. She has lectured and exhibited internationally, most recently at Salon94, NYC, Maureen Paley, London, Catinca Tabacaru, Bucharest , 303 Gallery, NYC, The Breeder Gallery, Athens. Most recently, Ebinama’s work was acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is currently working on a commissioned work for the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York and her upcoming solo at Fortnight Institute, NYC.
Emantes – International Lgbtqia+ Solidarity is a Social Cooperative Enterprise based in Athens, Greece, that was founded in July 2018 by experienced volunteers in the LGBTQIA+ refugee field as well as in feminist and/or queer groups. Some of the founding members were refugees/asylum seekers at the time. Emantes’ mission is twofold. On the one hand, they provide direct or indirect psychosocial support to LGBTQIA+ refugees/asylum seekers. On the other hand, they raise awareness on the issues the LGBTQIA+ refugee/migrant community faces, by highlighting the multiple repressions posed by its dual identity and its invisibility within the general refugee/migrant population. Emantes means “we” in kaliarda, the slang used by homosexuals in Greece during the 1940s, in order to safely communicate with one another. In modern Greek, “imantes” means straps, which to Emantes are a symbol of solidarity. Straps can lift or hold together very heavy objects. So, in a way, Emantes understand and envision solidarity through diversity and adversity, a connection with “others” in the most unlikely combinations.
SECCMA Trust is a creative venture of SERAPIS that aims to form an alliance supporting the growth and expansion of contemporary art locally and internationally.