Helena Uambembe | Cuida bem da pouca sorte (Take care of your poor luck)

Goodman Gallery is pleased to present ‘Cuida bem da pouca sorte’ by Helena Uambembe.

This marks the artist’s first solo presentation in London and follows her inclusion in the British Pavilion public programme at the 60th Venice Biennale. Uambembe plays around with irony and fortune to explore exilic identity, nationhood and the residue of military occupation.

Her practice is rooted in her family’s story of forced migration to South Africa following the Angolan civil war – a conflict that stemmed from the Cold War playing out on the African continent. Uambembe’s father was a soldier in the 32 Battalion, a unit in the South African Defence Force deployed to southern Angola. People who were coerced into SADF military service during apartheid South Africa’s long-term illegal occupation and border war with Angolan communist forces were later denied assistance and exiled from their home country.