Grace Ndiritu: Healing The Museum / Grace Ndiritu Reimagines the FOMU Collection 

Grace Ndiritu: Healing The Museum 
April 1–September 10, 2023
S.M.A.K., Jan Hoetplein 1, 9000 Gent

Healing The Museum is the first mid-career retrospective dedicated to Grace Ndiritu’s diverse artistic practice. Performance, film, social actions, shamanism, meditation, publications, textile work and research into museum collections are all part of this multi-layered exhibition project, in which she argues for the re-energization and ethicalization of the museum space and, by extension, the whole of society.

Intrigued by the question of what “embodied architecture” might mean, the artist has conceived the exhibition as a journey through space and time, incorporating a personal architectural design entitled The Spiritual Overlay. It follows the four cardinal directions and unfolds in temporal, contemplative moments. Along the way Grace Ndiritu introduces visitors to urgent themes, including community, ecology, blackness, feminism and issues relating to indigenous peoples. The journey ends at The Temple, an architectural structure intended for a critical collection presentation but also a spiritual space for encounter, transformation and healing. Focused sessions and shamanic performances will take place in this sacred space, and in the direct presence of the artworks. Transformation is made possible through the spiritual energy and heightened attention arising from these activities

Healing The Museum is part of Grace Ndiritu’s long-term research project of the same name, which she initiated in 2012 as a response to the spiritual decline in cultural institutions. It also encompasses Ndiritu’s artist residency at S.M.A.K. Under the title A Spiritual Inventory of a 21st Century Museum, the artist has spent the past year reflecting with staff on how to shape the museum of the future.

A first monograph, published by Motto Books, will accompany the exhibition.

Grace Ndiritu Reimagines the FOMU Collection 
April 1, 2023–January 7, 2024
FOMU, Waalsekaai 47, 2000 Antwerpen

Also in Belgium: FOMU (Photo Museum Antwerp) is showing Grace Ndiritu Reimagines the FOMU Collection. For this exhibition, Grace Ndiritu has created an original photographic universe of paintings, textiles and interior design inspired by the female artists O’Keeffe, Modotti and Albers. It represents a radical and holistic reinterpretation of the classic collection exhibition.

Ndiritu’s photographic installation A Quest for Meaning: Painting as a Medium of Photography (2014) formed the springboard for her exploration of the FOMU Collection and the ensuing exhibition. Ndiritu’s artistic practice explores our rapidly changing world. With this new exhibition, she has created a refuge, a space for slowing down and reflection. Ndiritu invites you to see with an open mind, make intuitive connections and abandon rational thought processes.  She combines photographs in a freely associative way and shows them on coloured walls. Her surprising amalgams give fresh meaning to works by, among others, Alexandre, Bianca Baldi, Samuel Bourne, Dirk Braeckman, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Lynne Cohen, Gilbert Fastenaekens, Gertrude Fehr, Geert Goiris, Willy Kessels, Rinko Kawauchi, Man Ray, Auguste Salzmann, Filip Tas, Nadine Tasseel and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Biography
Grace Ndiritu (b 1982, Birmingham) is a travelling British-Kenyan artist based in London and Brussels. Her work can be found in museum collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The British Council (London), LACMA (Los Angeles) and The Modern Art Museum (Warsaw). She is currently showing at S.M.A.K in Ghent and FOMU in Antwerp (2023). Recent exhibitions include The British Art Show (2021 to 2023), Wellcome Collection, London (2022), Gropius Bau, Berlin (2022), Kunsthal Gent (2021) and Nottingham Contemporary (2021). Ndiritu also participated in international film festivals, such as the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival (2022). She won the Jarman Award in 2022, presented in association with Film London. Grace Ndiritu is represented by Kate MacGarry in London.