This episode is centred around working with a gallery and planning an exhibition. We speak to guests Julie Taylor, from Guns and Rain, and Vivien Kohler, an artist, about reaching out to galleries; the inner workings of galleries; making sales; preparing for an exhibition; and using all the opportunities presented to you.



Guns & Rain works with contemporary visual artists from seven African countries, including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini, and Nigeria. Most of our artists are emerging, and focus on social, political and historical themes.



The gallery was established in 2014 to address the under-representation of African artists in the international art scene. It was one of the first online galleries in Africa and was ahead of its time, with its first curated online exhibition taking place in 2015 in collaboration with WISER, Wits University. They now have a permanent space located at 5, 3rd Avenue (next door to Courier Guy) Parkhurst.



Vivien Kohler (artist)| Instagram: @vivienkohlerart

Born in 1976 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Vivien Kohler is an experimental mixed-media painter. The concept of liminality; the liminal city and its people, lies at the core of Kohler's work, which explores migration, marginalization and displacement in the urban landscape of post-Apartheid South Africa.



Kohler constructs two and three-dimensional assemblage pieces; appropriating discarded material, painting naturalistic figures and detailed replications of packaging material (a layered visual metaphor signifying transience, migration, displacement), to articulate challenging social and economic circumstances that affect those on the periphery. For more information aboout Guns & Rain gallery · We would like to thank the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for their support · META Foundation website · META Foundation on Facebook · META Foundation on Twitter · META Foundation on Instagram · Connect with META Foundation on LinkedIn