1-54 London: London | UK

 

Jean David Nkot’s practice offers a poignant reflection on the human condition, shifting focus from migration to the exploitation of Africa’s natural resources. Since 2020, Nkot has turned his lens on the human toll within a global capitalist system, particularly highlighting the ways in which bodies are coerced into labor to fuel technological demand. Through his work, he brings attention to the physical and emotional suffering borne by those whose lives are tied to resource extraction and the economics that sustain it.

 

Ozioma Onuzulike’s ceramic sculptures offer a meditation on the body and its symbolic presence within societal structures. Through his manipulation of clay and iron oxide, Onuzulike creates terracotta beads tied together to form a garment shaped tapestry. His works draw attention to the power dynamics between the individual and the collective, turning an everyday object into a potent symbol of both desire and domination.

Hervé Yamguen’s bronze sculptures embody the idea of spiritual connection. By blending human, animal, and plant forms, Yamguen’s work challenges traditional notions of identity, illustrating the interconnectedness of all living beings. These hybrid forms evoke metamorphosis and communion, suggesting that the boundaries between species, and between body and spirit, are fluid. Yamguen’s work is a reflection on consciousness itself—a transcendence of the material world in search of something greater.

 

Beya Gille Gachia’s work also transforms the body into a metaphor and an extension of the mind. Magic plays an essential, though often invisible, role in her sculptures. These objects are more than mere representations; they are magical doubles of the human form, imbued with the power to hold fears or magnify strength and beauty. They exist at the intersection of art, fetishism, and transition.

 

Fabiana Ex-Souza’s exploration of the ecology of care leads her to delve into the processes of healing, reparation, and the transformation of ghostly objects. She engages with the idea of the “body-politic” as a means to interrogate histories of oppression and resistance. By questioning the role of archives, transmission, and the politics of repair, Ex-Souza creates space for the body to become both a site of recovery and a locus for collective memory.

Together, the works in this booth engage with the body not only as a physical entity but as a site of political resistance. 

 

Mouhcine Rahaoui questions the absurdity of life in its unreasonable and unfair nature. The mine confirms humans' fragility in the face of the unpredictability of the mountain that feeds them and sometimes swallows them up. Mouhcine Rahaoui tells the story of these dangerous, clandestine expeditions to extract the coal that sustains life and gently consumes it. Mouhcine Rahaoui wonders why working there, in Jerada, leads to death rather than life. Through a series of reproductions, installations and ready-mades, cataloguing the miner's tools - torches, helmets, gloves, ropes - in a dominant shade of black, Mouhcine Rahaoui plunges the viewer into the aesthetics of the worker and informs us, through a visceral gesture, of his fate, sealed by the mine like an immutable destiny.

 

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1-54 London
AFIKARIS Gallery, Booth E2
Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA, UK

 

 

EXHIBITING ARTISTS
Fabiana Ex-Souza

Beya Gilla Gacha

Jean David Nkot

Ozioma Onuzulike

Mouhcine Rahaoui

Hervé Yamguen