Image-Making as an Act of Resistance: Who Holds the Gaze?
A collaboration between MEZEKERE and FOTO ARSENAL WIEN
This workshop is for people of the Global Majority, Black and Black diasporic communities, and Indigenous people.
In a world constructed by imperialism, capitalism, white narcissism, and patriarchal violence, Black people have been pictured by others: cataloged, exoticized, questioned about where they “really” come from, and questioned about their bodily autonomy.
Zanele Muholi responds with images that affirm their community rather than offering it up for consumption. Gê Viana, currently presented at MEZEKERE Space, cuts into colonial images and gives the archive back to those it left out. Abiona Esther Ojo starts with her family’s diaspora bags and Afro-diasporic hair as carriers of knowledge, history, and resistance.
In Abiona Esther Ojo’s workshop, the camera changes hands. Working in pairs, you direct your own portrait: your gaze, your pose, your light, and how much of yourself you show. No experience is needed. Bring a smartphone and one object that holds a memory, a home, or a refusal: a comb, hair beads, a photo, or a piece of fabric.
Abiona Esther Ojo is an Austrian-Nigerian artist based in Vienna, working with photography, cyanotype, textile, and sculpture. She trained in photography in Vienna and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and received the Kunsthalle Wien Prize in 2020.
Registration required by and including November, 24 2026 via this link:
Date: Thursday, November 25, 2026
Time: 18:00–19:30
Meeting point: Main entrance / foyer: FOTO ARSENAL WIEN
Language: German and English
Age: 18 and above
Target audience: For people of the Global Majority, Black and Black diasporic communities, and Indigenous people.
This event offers a safe space for exchange, connection and collective reflection in which lived experiences, perspectives and forms of knowledge that are often marginalized, underrepresented or excluded from dominant narratives are centered, recognized and valued.
Credits: Abiona Esther Ojo, untitled, 2014. © Abiona Esther Ojo