Elegy is a life-work of mourning…
It is a cry, a lament, a tender refrain of remembrance, repair, and black feminist love.
For more than ten years, Gabrielle Goliath has staged performances of Elegy across South Africa and the world – in Johannesburg, Cape Town, São Paulo, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Basel and elsewhere. As a call to mourn, the work tends to an entanglement of hurts, from the crisis of rape culture and femicide in South Africa, to the erasure of Ovaherero and Nama life-worlds in Namibia, and the ongoing displacement and killing of Palestinian women, children, and civilians in Gaza. In confronting loss, Elegy offers a space of tenuous kinship, manifesting in voice and feeling the possibility of a world otherwise.
Sounding within Chiesa di Sant’Antonin in Veniceare three new suites of Elegy performances, spanning these intertwined contexts of violence and loss. Those commemorated include South African student Ipeleng Christine Moholane, two murdered Nama women ancestors, and Palestinian poet Heba Abunada, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis, Gaza, in October 2023. Arranged across eight funereal video screen monoliths, the collective voices and visuals of these performances bathe participants in light and sound, drawing them into a shared labour of imagination, connection and care.
This independent exhibition offers a unique opportunity to present an iconic summation of this seminal performance work at a significant moment as women, LGBTIQ+ communities and allies have rallied once more to refuse the crisis-norm of femicide in South Africa, whilst on the global stage South Africa has led the way in defending imperilled Palestinian lives at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
As an unfolding journey, ‘Elegy’ will travel from Venice to Ibraaz in London in October 2026, accompanied by a catalogue launch and community-driven Curriculum of Shared Breath.
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“Convened in this exhibition is a gathering space, a sacred chamber in which to sound a reparative work of loving and longing. We hold a note - a black femme chorus - and in the face of cancellation, threat, and incommensurable losses, dare to think and dream the world differently.”
Gabrielle Goliath
“Elegy is wound and medicine when mourning itself is under threat.”
Christina Sharpe & Rinaldo Walcott
“Elegy is a work that holds memory, care and connection in the face of loss. Carrying it forward now feels both urgent and necessary, and aligns with Ibraaz’s mission to be a brave space that platforms powerful ideas from the Global Majority, especially when others may find them inconvenient. This collaboration with Gabrielle builds on a friendship that began at Jaou Tunis in 2022, and we are privileged to continue this journey in Venice and London.”
Lina Lazaar (Ibraaz)