'It doesn't look African' - challenging stereotypes at Tate Modern

"Nadia Denton wants you to think differently about African art. "There's this misconception that African art is solely about masks or sculptural types," says the volunteer African heritage tour guide at the Tate Modern art gallery in central London. "The work we generally look at on the tour doesn't look 'African'." Inside the gallery, Nadia's vision immediately becomes clear: the pieces she focuses on are modern, conceptual, abstract, and entirely at odds with the cliches of African art many visitors expect."

"Nadia runs various tours across several museums. At the V&A, she leads the African Gaze, looking at portrayals of African people in 17th and 18th Century European art. At the British Museum, she explores the Nigerian Igbo worldview. But here at Tate Modern, her focus is African Modernism and Afro-Surrealism - movements she says are rarely spotlighted in major Western galleries."

Nadia Denton is a volunteer African heritage tour guide at Tate Modern who foregrounds contemporary African artistic practices that defy common stereotypes. She highlights modern, conceptual and abstract works, and leads tours that also cover portrayals of African people at the V&A and Igbo worldviews at the British Museum. Her Tate tours focus on African Modernism and Afro-Surrealism, movements that often lack visibility in Western galleries. Denton emphasizes accessible, warm interpretation, using everyday examples to foster presence and belonging. She interprets works like Abdoulaye Konate's Intolerance, noting how textiles and found materials evoke communal fractures when communities turn against one another.

Read at www.bbc.com