Gallery 1957 presents Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space, the second part of the sister-city exhibition between Gallery 1957 in Accra and London. Artists participating in this group show include those collaborating with the gallery for the first time; Clifford Bright Abu, Abdul-Salam Alhassan, Akosua Odeibea Amoah-Yeboah, Dela Anyah, Dzidzor Azaglo, Elolo Bosoka, Jasper Dafeamekpor, Rosemary Esinam Damalie, Victor Ehikhamenor, Samuel Baah Kortey, Rebekka Macht, Afrane Makof, Putin Ofori, Frederick Ebenezer Okai, Na Chainkua Reindorf, Ghizlane Sahli and Nyahan Tachie-Menson, as well as long-term collaborator Jonathan Okoronkwo and artists who participated in Constellations Part 1; Lois Selasie Arde-Acquah, Phoebe Boswell, Adelaide Damoah, Denyse Gawu-Mensah, Henry Hussey, Sarah Meyohas and Lisa C Soto.

Constellations Part 1: Figures on Earth & Beyond sought to challenge the framing of our epoch as the Anthropocene by asking: how can we re-examine art historical, spiritual, and science fictional representations of figures in a landscape through a lens of empathy and interconnection? By activating enduring global narratives of creation mythology, animism, terrestrial paradise, heaven and earth, space colonisation, and more, participants were welcomed to pose future solutions for a regenerative world in the age of the Chthulucene (Greek for khthôn / kainos, respectively of the earth / now).
This reconceived epoch conceived by ecofeminist scholar Donna Haraway is made up of ongoing multispecies stories and practices of becoming-with in times that remain at stake, in precarious times, in which the world is not finished, and the sky has not fallen – yet.

Constellations Part 2: Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space continues this research pursuit by inquiring about the notion of our interconnectedness, and our place in trying to decentre ourselves. As American ecologist and philosopher Timothy Morton poses in his 2009 book Ecology without Nature, how can we rethink our sense of place and not get too comfortable with nature in all its passive, normative, and hierarchical structures imposed by humans?

Figures in Webs and Ripples of Space continues the research-based vision of Constellations as a platform for experimentation and knowledge-sharing to collectively imagine new futures. Part 2 distinctly re-examines the way we understand the place of humans in the world, to challenge us into re-thinking ecology without essentialist narratives of nature. This interconnected portal focuses on immersive site-specific installations through a West African mythological lens to extend our enduring, interconnected earth story whereby radically reimagining human and nonhuman inhabitation is nothing short of vital.

– Text by Nuna Adisenu-Doe, Tracy Naa Koshie Thompson, and Katherine Finerty.

gallery1957.com