Surreal Continuum - Revisiting, Remapping, Reimagining Surrealism

‘Jazz is my religion, and surrealism is my point of view’, writes Ted Joans, capturing in just a few words the eclectic, transformative quality of Surrealism. Often mistaken for strangeness, Surrealism has been a profound medium for exploring and achieving liberation, rebellion, and the remaking of reality.


Emerging in the period following the First World War, Surrealism sought to combat western rationalism by expressing the profundity of the mind through automatism, writing, poetry, and psychoanalysis. André Breton’s 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism defined it as ‘psychic automatism’, describing a mode of thought unfettered by reason and morality. But despite its global resonance, Surrealism has often been narrowly framed as a male, European (primarily French) movement. 


Surreal Continuum: Revisiting, Remapping, Reimagining Surrealism counters this narrow narrative by engaging with under-recognized contributors to Surrealist thought and practice across different geographies, such as Suzanne Césaire, Joyce Mansour, and Ted Joans, while also forging new connections to the works of contemporary practitioners such as Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, Moses Maerz, Emilie Moorhouse, Savanna Morgan, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Ben Okri, Lisa Spalt, Yoko Tawada, and others.