Artists: Francis Offman in conversation with Kamogelo Walaza

This episode was recorded on 22 May, during the installation of Francis Offman’s solo exhibition at the Secession. Kamogelo Walaza, a curatorial fellow from South Africa, spoke with the artist about his work and the exhibition:

Francis Offman
Weaving Stories
29.5. – 31.8.2025

The walls of the stairwell that leads to Francis Offman’s exhibition Weaving Stories are covered in dried coffee grounds. The dark tactile material transforms the narrow entrance to the exhibition space on the first floor into an immersive olfactory experience. More

The works of Francis Offman consist of canvases (not mounted on stretchers) with irregular contours, featuring paintings that emerge from the associations of sections of vivid, flat, uniform colors, and collage zones made with the insertion of scraps of paper – thin or thicker sheets, salvaged from bread wrappers or shoeboxes – which enter the composition like rips or wounds. An encounter that only on occasion makes elements emerge that can be traced back to the real: a dry tree, a mountain, a portion of water, earth or sky … Offman’s pieces are free compositions that imply fragile references, minimal and understated, to a faraway world (Africa and Rwanda, where the artist spent some of his childhood) and its customs, a traumatic memory and an uncertain identity; jagged, dynamic spaces that cannot give rise to an integral landscape. (Davide Ferri)

Francis Offman was born in Butare, Rwanda, in 1987 and now lives in Bologna, Italy.

Kamogelo Walaza is a curatorial fellow at the Secession from May to June 2025 as part of the FOCUS INTERNATIONAL programme of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport.
She is a curator, writer, arts and cultural educator and ethnographer, born in Bloemfontein and based in Johannesburg. She holds a Postgraduate degree in Applied Drama and Theatre and a BA Honours in Drama Therapy from the University of the Witwatersrand, as well as a BA in Corporate Communication, an Honours in Communication Studies, and an Honours in Public Management and Governance from the University of Johannesburg. Walaza received the Marshall Kander Drama for Life Award for her research on HIV/AIDS awareness through applied drama. She recently completed a distinction-awarded autoethnographic paper titled Memories in Her Blood.

 

Secession Podcast: Artists features artists exhibiting at the Secession.
The Dorotheum is the exclusive sponsor of the Secession Podcast.
Programmed by the board of the Secession.

Jingle: Hui Ye with an excerpt from Combat of dreams for string quartet and audio feed (2016, Christine Lavant Quartett) by Alexander J. Eberhard
Audio Editor: Paul Macheck
Executive Producer: Bettina Spörr