Hands tell the story of time. We use these hands of ours to live and love and understand the world. However, there is a long and dark tradition of the removal of these precious hands from African bodies.

Reaching for Absence is an exhibition by Brenton Sizwe Zola that takes the famous colonial symbol of Belgian lace and drapes it in beauty and tension on the Black body, with an emphasis on the hand. It reimagines historical scenes through themes of ritual, subverting expectations and looking to find an answer to the absence.

It asks us: where do we connect? When we are separated, we reach in absence, for absence.

The Broad Art Center
240 Charles E Young Drive North
EDA, Grad Gallery, Room 1250
Tuesday - Thursday, March 14-16, 2023
Opening Reception: Tuesday, March 14 at 6pm