Always Foreigners delves into the nuanced experiences of displacement, identity, and belonging, exploring how the notion of the foreigner transcends geographical boundaries and personal histories. Featuring a selection of Zimbabwean Shona sculptors, this exhibition brings together diverse voices and practices that interrogate the complexities of being both part of and apart from the cultural and societal landscapes they inhabit. In a Greek context, where the concept of xenos (foreigner or stranger) carries deep cultural and historical resonance, the exhibition taps into the ancient and contemporary tensions between hospitality and exclusion.
The exhibition navigates the contradictions of identity and belonging, challenging the boundaries between self and other, and questioning the constructs that define who is considered an outsider. Similarly, the Shona sculptors—David White, Leonard Sezhendo, Edison Seda, Garrison Machinjili, and Boet Nyariri—navigate their identities within the evolving landscape of Zimbabwean art. Their sculptures, carved from Serpentinite, speak to the Shona people’s deep connection to the land while simultaneously engaging with global artistic dialogues. Their work explores the foreignness of tradition in a rapidly globalizing world, where cultural preservation and contemporary expression must coexist.
The exhibition invites the audience to reflect on the universality of foreignness, not as a state of exclusion, but as a shared human experience. It challenges us to consider how our perceptions of self and others are shaped by cultural, historical, and personal narratives, urging us to find empathy in the understanding that we are all, in some way, navigating the space between belonging and alienation.
In bringing together these artists, Ungramme Gallery creates a dialogue that is at once intimate and expansive, asking us to reexamine what it means to be foreign in a world that is constantly shifting beneath our feet.
