Gallery 1957 in Accra, Ghana, presents the exhibition ‘Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space’, curated jointly by Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson, Nuna Adisenu-Doe and Katherine Finerty.
The exhibition (‘Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space’) continues the research of the first exhibition ‘Constellations Part 1: Figures on Earth and Beyond’, which sought to challenge the framework of the current era called the ‘Anthropocene’, but this time questions the notion of interconnectedness and place in an attempt to de-centre ourselves.
As we enter the exhibition, a large space made of concrete that could be a shed or a car park, a deep silence welcomes us, as if to draw our attention to what lies ahead: introspection on the fragile human condition, on the space we conceive as Earth (home), the only place so far where we know life as it is, but which we don’t take care of as such.
In a statement, the curators emphasise that the works of the 25 or so artists ‘present the open possibilities of a multi-species world in which our human being is very much based on coexistence. A coexistence, however, that does not automatically imply harmonious and peaceful relations, but rather a dialectical balance with the paradox of existential crisis.’
Many of the artists in Constellations Part 2 play with African mythology to reimagine worlds beyond the human – sensitive, actual, coherent and earthly. The artists in this exhibition connect and break relationships through a constellation of machines, plants, religious or mythical objects, souvenirs and all forms of objects that connect and distance us.
