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Act I - We ain't nothing without love, without love.
What does it mean to be abundant? This tracks in to the next question, if not now, when?
Faridah Folawiyo brings forth an answer to both with her group show titled ‘Manifold’, her London debut show framed around community. The themes, not limited to, time, memory, love, space, and showing 15 black women artists all over the world working with a variety of mediums across painting, installation, film, photography, sculpture, and printmaking. Folawiyo’s curation welcomes us to her world of abundance, a space where the artists have been given generous freedom of expression without the background support of the institutional white cube space. The production is free from executive input or any outside influence, as the artists are given independence to create. This is a land of experimentation, a land where the work speaks for itself, a place of necessity where the viewers can connect with works, through the lens of the artists. Beyond celebrating a culture of abundance, Folawiyo goes further by advocating for that freedom to create freely without restriction in a time where it is needed.
Folawiyo invites us to rethink our views on abundance by the size and selection of works, the multiple manifestations of the artists are visible as they co-exist in layers across time and this is echoed collectively. Over the course of the opening night to the closing, trust was the foundation in participating in the show as mentioned by the artists. In the Manifold zine, the introduction email offers insight into the proposal and is clearly detailed. She talks about the intense six-month project often highlighting the stress behind the scenes with casual ease and grace, clearly showing the curator’s expanding role as she credits the help of those who rallied around and supported her collectively, family and friends. Giving credit to the artists first for trusting her with their works, because manifold would not have been possible without them and for space curation, Jade Adeyemi and Joy Matashi among others heralding how much of their dedication and commitment to Manifold is appreciated. This is a community of people Folawiyo has gathered over the
years.
Peggy Cooper Cafritz, a force of nature who championed Black artists until her passing, once said “black women artists are consistently undermined by the great white lie of black inferiority that demands black excellence, exceptional” in this show, the artists dive into a range of emotions from satire to longing to a state of reflection. No artist is pigeonholed into creating about the black experience, artists just want to create and not every work has to be critiqued through the lens of intellectual art discourse.
One piece that has especially stuck with me over the course of Manifold is Emmanuelle Loca Gisquet’s ‘Timoun Trénelle’, photographed in Martinique around 2020. The image shows a little black boy walking down from the hill with a bicycle surrounded by greenery and old buildings. So often we discuss the idea of capturing a moment in a precise manner, one that evokes nostalgia is not always the initial intent but the longing that emerges after that moment and what it represents to the viewer.
Audre Lorde posed the question “what are the words you do not yet have, what do you need to say” – Manifold certainly has a number of things to say in form of the works.
There were live performances delivered over the exhibition, which was a delight to witness. Ayoade Bamgboye delivered a brilliant, witty and slightly dark but worthy performance. From the tragic war against braid wigs, the pain and navigation of grief, to the oddness of people, and closing off with a stream of thoughts that also included a brief rendition of Yebba’s heartbreak. The humming of the lines “how much better can I show my love for you”, to understand this performance a bit further, you need to dig a bit further into your stream of thoughts, the ones where you ask yourself why people always ask “how are you” but are never prepared if you say anything other than “I am well, thanks”, this is the opposite of that. This performance pierces through that veil completely in an unfiltered way.
(Image of Issue 1 of Manifold Archives, Courtesy of FF Projects, 2022)
Daena Ladesse treated the audience to a live performance in creole, her native tongue, vocals echoing in the room and a live drawing painted with this flowing energy. Viewers are engaged in the performance by her selection from the audience as the energy flows, there is silence but not the uncomfortable kind, it is a reaffirming silence adding to the layers of the work. There are deep breathing intervals, very cathartic, there were tears, laughter, and loaded hugs with short bursts of intricate movement tracing their bodies against each other like a map, an energy map if you will.
(Image of work by Daena Ladesse, Courtesy of FF projects, 2022)
Highlights of works that struck a chord of thought further were Ayo Akingbade’s Sukiyaki, the artist whose work historically references notions of power, urbanism, and stance as mentioned by the artist. Sukiyaki allowed viewers to bear witness to Akingbade’s work over a 4-minute silent film, rather than leading us into a defined conclusion of what it means. Akingbade leads us into her time portal, akin to an open playfield, where Sade Adu, Aretha Franklin, Kate Bush and a still from Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki (1973) merge. It is clear that Akingbade’s navigation of the archive is important in merging the past with present, this is the root where the tree grows. The layered transparency here would reference time in a way that matters, capturing a moment, for nostalgia.
(Image of Manifold exhibtion, Courtesy of FF Projects, 2022)
Writing and thinking about this at length has been fulfilling, rather than speaking about it further, I feel that you had to be there to revel in the energy from the opening night until the last day. This quote from John Coltrane sums it all up, “no matter what…it is with God. He is Gracious and merciful. His way is through love, in which we all are. It is truly a love supreme.” all this to say Manifold was an abundant show of love, a love letter, in many forms to black women artists by Folawiyo.