Body Maps Touring Exhibition

The Body Maps are an extraordinary series of life-sized mixed-media images created by the women of the Memory Box Project, a community outreach programme conceived by the University of Cape Town in response to the growing number of South Africans living with HIV and AIDS. Initially, the project aimed at preparing the participants for death and leaving legacies for children who would soon become orphans. The project leaders noticed, however, that as the participants started working on the project, they were facing their futures rather than dwelling on their pasts, concentrating on life rather than death.

The participants, the Bambanani Women (Bambanani is a Zulu word meaning “to support one another, to lend hands”), were invited to tell their stories publicly and the Body Maps became a way for them to do so, evolving into eloquent expressions of the experiences of these women, and becoming works of art that would form the basis of a book and a traveling exhibition. The Body Maps trace the body’s outline, visualise the virus, and articulate each artist’s experience of loss and suffering. The complex narratives of this series of self-portraits and the subsequent publication of Long Life… Positive HIV Stories encourage us, in the face of this suffering, to remain hopeful and to celebrate life.

The fourteen Bambanani Women original Body Map mixed media works were editioned as digital ink jet prints on paper and on canvas by David Krut Publishing in 2002. The suite of editioned prints forms a touring exhibition that has crossed the United States and Europe and continues to be booked by institutions and centres keen to use the  Body Maps as teaching aids and exemplar for their own students and patients.

The Body Maps were first exhibited in the US in December 2003 by David Krut in an exhibition called Identity Document at David Krut Projects in New York. They then moved to UNCTAD at the United Nations and continue to travel across the USA. The full exhibition resumé is listed below.

The prints are available for purchase as digital ink jet print on canvas, 72” x 40” in an edition of 45 or digital ink jet print on paper, 37.5” x 24” in an edition of 90.

Please contact Kate McCrickard at: kate@davidkrut.com for information on the touring exhibition or acquisition of prints. Proceeds of sales go directly to the Bambanani Women.

To date, the Body Maps have been exhibited at the following venues:

Opening January 2009 through March 2009

The College of Wooster Art Museum
Ebert Art Center
1220 Beall Avenue
Wooster, OH  44691, USA
www.wooster.edu/artmuseum

January 21st - April 18th 2008

American Jewish Museum and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation
Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh
5738 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, USA
www.jccpgh.org/museum.asp

March 7th - 27th 2007

Kingsborough Community College, CUNY
2001 Oriental Boulevard, Brooklyn, NY 11235, USA
http://www.kingsborough.edu/announcement/body_map/index.html

February 5th 2007 - Marcy 30th 2007

Purdue Universities Black Cultural Center  / Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc, Zeta Theta Chapter
1100 Third Street
West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA

November 3 - December 2 2006
Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Willard Straight Art Gallery
Ithaca,  NY  14853, USA

1st November - 8th December 2006

Austin Arts Center, Widener Gallery
Trinity College, Department of Fine Arts
300 Summit Street
Hartford, CT 06106-3100, USA

September 5th – October 13th 2006, , reception Sept 7th
Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media
Columbia College Chicago
33 E. Congress Street, Suite #530, C33 Gallery
Chicago, Il. 60605

June / July 2006
National Black Arts Festival
659 Auburn Avenue
Suite 254
Atlanta, Georgia 30312, USA

February 3rd – March 31st 2006
Afro American Cultural Center
401 North Myers Street
Charlotte, NC 28202, USA

November 2005 - January 15th 2006
Annenberg Center, University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA, USA, http://scholars.asc.upenn.edu/index.php?page=1

October 1st – November 7th 2005
Sycamore Place Gallery
Atlanta, GA

March 7th – June 30th 2005
Women’s Studies Research Center
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA

February - March 2005

African American Cultural Center at North Carolina State University
401 North Myers Street
Charlotte, NC 28202, USA

February 2005

Johnson & Johnson Services Inc
PO Box 16506
New Brunswick, NJ 08906-6506, USA

November 5th 2004 – January 16th 2005
The Painted Bride Center
Philadelphia PA 19106, USA

September 17, 2004 through October 18, 2004
Flaten Art Museum
St. Olaf College
15-20 St. Olaf Avenue
Northfield, MN 55057

April 12th – June 2004
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development  (UNCTAD)
New York, NY, USA

December 12th – February 16th, 2004
David Krut Projects
526 West 26th Street, #816, New York, NY 10001, USA

December 2nd - December 5th 2003
Clockwork-Apple Gallery
New York, NY, USA

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