Challenging times, where our entire environment is crumbling or changing, have a great impact on people’s identity, forcing them to reflect on themselves in relation to the world around them. With COVID we realized that changing our collective behaviour is essential to save lives. With the confinements, we have been forced to change from EX (exterior, extroversion, exhibitions, externalization …) to IN (interior, introversion, inhibition, inside, insolation …) Everything is going inward and our social identity has been volatilized. We have been locked inside. And that changed our reality, to an inhibited one, self-conscious and unable to act in a relaxed and natural way in a new reality that changes everything.

COVID has affected everyone, deep down, it may not be reflected aesthetically in all the artist‘s works yet, but it is definitely in the thoughts and way of seeing things that brought more questions than answers.

The dystopian worlds of Paul Onditi (Kenya), now have a premonitory addition, the virus. The sickness and the death join into the cataclysm of climate change that always surrounds Smokey, the always protagonist of his paintings that is the representation of the human mind. He focuses his work on the consequences of the decisions and actions of the collective identity that are deeply disconnected from its origins and its true nature.  Trees that are abandoned, depletion of nature by civilization and how is clearing nature.

Fitsum Berhe (Ethiopia) and Onyis Martin (Kenya) question identity through the overlapping of layers of history, culture, context and society that are constantly changing and covering the true identity. What Shabu Mwangi (Kenya) sees as the killing of identity. For Shabu, the true self only exists beyond labels and boxes.

Fitsum sees identity as something moldable and in a constant motion; amazed by the overlapping of cultures that share history. He melts his colourful portraits into the iconic plate´s patterns that you can find in Swahili culture as a metaphor of how something made in China, just by changing its geographic position, became African and an icon of their culture. This makes Fitsum question cultural identity. The complexity of it brings to him more questions than answers. What is Identity?

The body of work of Onyis Martin reflects the journey of becoming Humans represented by walls that are fighting to release or breakthrough the true identity. Sometimes the wall looks at us, sometimes we judge the wall others the wall judge us. The rests of posters washed out from the walls are a metaphor of the layers of history, prejudgments and labels that society put on us and that help to hide more the genuine human’s identities. And how human interaction became an interaction between walls and fewer between humans.

Also talking about distorted identity we have the series “This is not my Face, This is my Soul” from Souad Abdel Rasoul (Egypt), Souad is not interested in the physical beauty, she seeks for the true identity, the one connected with all the elements of the existence.

The body of work of Agemo Francis (Nigeria) is focused on the societal, cultural, and political side of identity. Agemo´s grandfather was one of the dignitary Idol worshippers of his village. Surrounded by statues, totems and masks. Agemo experienced how the beliefs and rituals from the past can affect the behaviour of cultures now, defining heritage identities. His sources of inspiration spark a dialogue between the duality of tradition and contemporaneity. This duality appears also in the work of Mohamed Rabie (Egypt), Rabie´s portraits are the reflection of the reminiscents of ancient Egypt civilization and the contemporary Egyptian identity. The Faces are distorted representing the scars of pain and human issues through the time.

Crisis often lead people to question themselves and the way they live their lives, and the coronavirus pandemic is not different, in the case of Eltayeb Dawelbait (Sudan) a lot of questions arises through the Isolation from others and from its own parts of the body (like his mouth or his hands). A change of life from Outside to Inside. Inside for surviving. The new way of seeing others, just seeing their eyes. He had been trying to understand and refresh his identity because the one before it seems wrong now. Looking for a new identity, to be united and with a new awareness, as we can’t ever be the ones before.

Bouvy Enkobo (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Kirubel Melke (Ethiopia) struggle with how the national identities separate souls and they just hope for equality and unity.  Bouvy believes that there is only one identity and it is the same for everyone, humans.

These times gave to Lincoln Mwangi (Kenya) a break to reflect on his true desires and necessities. Due to the suspensions of what mostly we consumed our time, we will have to adjust to new functions. We often lost ourselves inside collective decisions and bend to its will. The faces covered with a veil in Lincoln’s portraits leaves open alternative personalities or identities. Giving the value to the action more than the labelling.

Shabu is looking forward to awakening, a change from the inside. Since he doesn’t believe in a political change. With COVID we see more inequalities: “There are many rooms for a little number of people and others share one” he says. Identity kills the meaning of things, kills culture. Because when you identify with a culture, that is the beginning of adjusting yourself to society and not being yourself.

Identity belongs to the group of concepts that usually generate controversy when mixed with religion or politics, since it can comprise two very defined and opposite forms, a relationship with freedom and authenticity, and the other, with the assumption of a social role determined by the elderly.