On 2 September, about 20 African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) staff and students were taken on a guided tour by renowned artist Serge Alain Nitegeka, of his latest exhibition called Black Subjects, currently showcasing at the Wits Art Museum (26 August to 1 November 2025).
Nitegeka presents his first institutional solo show in Johannesburg. For Black Subjects, he stages a monumental sculptural intervention, whilst also working across painting and video. Nitegeka grounds his practice in a language of abstraction, geometry and colour. The experiential interaction with the work refutes passivity, resulting in a congruence between the body and space.
A key tenet of the exhibition is the relationship between movement and load. In his paintings, figures carry unidentified cargo, moving across a landscape of abstracted obstacles, Nitegeka renders cargo and the personal effects of migration into a language of abstracted thought and form, emphasising the liminality embedded in these narratives.
As the audience is transformed into the Black Subjects, the installation-performance exemplifies the ways the body becomes cargo and continues the artist’s reflections on his experiences of forced migration and displacement.
Listen to the podcast below of the discussion that Nitegeka had with ACMS during the exhibition walkabout. The conversation covers issues of identity, language, home and belonging:
