NOW Later: there is no place that cannot be home*
[*from ‘School Note’ by Audre Lorde]
5pm – 9.30pm
NOW Gallery’s ongoing celebration of the heterogeneous Black experience continues this October with there is no place that cannot be home. The curatorial collective i.as.in.we have been commissioned to explore facets of contemporary African diasporic identity through performance. The event coincides with Black History Month this October and NOW recognises the exigency of creating spaces for free expression and interrogative practice.
What is built into an experience of blackness that offers us new horizons for thinking about this world and its possibilities? Deeping the ting and engaging the breath, poetry and movement of the black body, this evening asks us what is needed to create a shared language of liberation. What can we learn from blackness as it expands, ruptures and questions the structures that have historically negated it? Through performance and film, we invite you to vision a new world and interrogate what it will take to arrive there.
*School note – Audre Lorde
My children play with skulls
for their classrooms are guarded by warlocks
who scream at the walls collapsing
into paper toilets
plump witches mouth ancient curses
in an untaught tongue
test children upon their meaning
assign grades
in a holocaust ranging
from fury down through contempt.
My children play with skulls
at school
they have already learned
to dream of dying
their playgrounds were graveyards
where nightmares of no
stand watch over rented earth
filled with the bones of tomorrow.
My children play with skulls
and remember
for the embattled
there is no place
that cannot be
home
nor is.
About i.as.in.we
i.as.in.we is the wayward/motile collaboration between Rohan Ayinde and Yewande YoYo Odunubi rooted in a politics of horizontality, blackness, liberation and the practice of radical honesty.
Rohan Ayinde is a Chicago and London-based artist, writer and curator. His interdisciplinary work is centred around creating “otherwise” potentials (Ashon Crawley), and in so doing breaking down and simultaneously reconfiguring the ideological architectures that shape our daily and generational lives. The landscapes his work explores are formed through the lens of a black radical tradition committed to imagining freedom as a horizon of possibility. They are an archive of the journey there; maps under continuous construction; refusals to acquiesce to the dominant structures of thought that frame the world we live in. Oscillating between text, video, drawings, photography and collage, Ayinde’s work is in a constant negotiation with itself, trying to understand the role it plays in building the worlds it is invested in imagining.
Yewande YoYo Odunubi is a dyslexic dancer, curator and cultural producer invested in building environments across mediums that nurture and give space to meaningful and imaginative exchange. Centring her practice around the mantra “I’m not here for a version of me, I’m here for every part of me” she is interested in intersectional frameworks and interventions that seek to rupture the dominant narratives, enactments and occupation of the arts. Powered by a black expansive imagination, Yewande is exploring alternative approaches to traditional curatorial practice and art structures, rethinking and challenging what it means for cultural spaces to function through a communal ethos.
Tickets to this event have now sold out however you can join the waitlist HERE
Entry to the film screenings taking place outside the gallery does not require a ticket and seats will be allocated on a first come first serve basis.
Afternoon Performance – 17.00
Welcoming – i.as.in.we
Come Home – Ffion Campbell-Davies
breathe. – Shawanda Corbett
Balance – Rowdy SS
Calling all the Prophets – Harold Offeh
Evening Performance – 19.30
Welcoming – i.as.in.we
Come Home – Ffion Campbell-Davies
breathe. – Shawanda Corbett
Balance – Rowdy SS
Calling all the Prophets – Harold Offeh
Outdoor Film Programme – 17.00, 18.00, 19.00, 20.00, 21.00
BLK Soap – Darryl Daley
Godspeed – Sade Abiodun
In Hot Time – Jesus Hilario-Reyes and Leah Solomon
where did we land – Rabz Lansiquot
In Praise of Still Boys – Julianknxx
Due to popular demand, we are streaming extracts from our live event NOW Later: there is no place that cannot be home in partnership with The Peninsulist Presents.
View the full programme here
Book tickets for the digital edition here
Image credits in order of appearance:
1. Rowdy SS, Balance, AGM, Somerset House, 2019
2. Ffion Campbell-Davies, Photograph by Richard Moore
3. Blackbird in Mississippi, Courtesy of Shawanda Corbett
4. Harold Offeh, Selfie Choreography, Eastside Projects, 2020, Photograph by Ashley Carr