Efiɛ Gallery is hosting Dance Will Be You, a group exhibition focusing on performative and symbolic dimensions in contemporary African art. Featuring works by María Magdalena Campos-Pons, J.K. Bruce-Vanderpuije, Dina Nur Satti, and Myles Igwebuike, the show explores themes of devotion, contemplation, and transcendence, as well as the notion of multiplicity. The exhibition will remain open until 20 March 2025.
The exhibition’s title is drawn from We a BaddDDD People (1970), a poem by American poet and writer Sonia Sanchez who was a key figure in the Black Arts Movement. The show echoes Sanchez’s reflections on transformative expression and unity. Much like her poetry, the exhibition embodies movement as metaphor and action: a dance of shifting forms, states of being, and expressions.
Cuban artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons‘s practice investigates themes of history, memory, gender, and religion and how they shape identity. The exhibition features her Interstellar, a mixed-media triptych that navigates the mysteries of celestial spaces. The process itself becomes a space of multiplicity, where different techniques converge to explore the divine and the transcendent. Also on view is her Reservoir for Love #2, an installation where molten glass takes fluid, abstract forms, playing between motion and stillness, light and colour.
Through his lens, J.K. Bruce-Vanderpuije (1899–1989), a renowned Ghanaian photographer, captured urban landscapes during Ghana’s independence era. He is also famous for establishing the Deo Gratias Photo Studio in 1922, one of the oldest photography studios in Africa which still operates today. In the exhibition, visitors can see his photographs that depict Ghanaian ritual practices, in particular, those responding to famine, where dance, communal gatherings, prayer, and ritual acts intertwine with spiritual and ancestral traditions. These ceremonies, still practised across Africa today, honour the divine, foster communal resilience, and reconnect with ancestral wisdom.
Sudanese-Somali ceramic artist Dina Nur Satti‘s practice is based on studying African art and pre-colonial African traditions. Interested in ritual objects, she often travels across Africa to learn about ancient crafts and the use of ceremonial objects. The exhibition features Satti’s Lotus Series, a collection of ceramic vessels symbolising the lotus flower’s resilience — rising from the mud to reach for light. Her sculptures serve as totems of transformation, merging form and matter into sacred expressions. Satti’s work reflects the significance of communal worship, drinking rituals with clay pots, and gatherings in East African homes, such as Simba or Manyatta, celebrating the intentional design of African craftsmanship.
Taking cues from the cultural heritage of Nigeria and the African continent, Nigerian-American artist and designer Myles Igwebuike infuses his work with a contemporary sensibility that challenges conventional notions of African design. The exhibition presents his ECHICHE Bench, inspired by traditional Igbo Mbari houses. Adorned with carved Igbo cosmological symbols, the bench reflects his research into how ancestral knowledge shapes contemporary design. A place of contemplation, it illustrates the balance between movement and stillness, past and present, devotion and creativity.
To get more information about Dance Will Be You, please visit the official web page of the show.
You might also be interested in exploring LOBI LOBI by Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou, one of the online exhibitions at the Cultural Foundation.
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