in the perpetual back and forth, solo exhibition

in the perpetual back and forth

Maria Amidu’s solo exhibition, in the perpetual back and forth, explores writing and its dialogue with paper, in relation with presence and absence, memory and longing, care and carelessness, silencing, and displacement. The show centres around her Future Collect commission 26,778,780 minutes, newly acquired by Towner Eastbourne. It also features a second work, episode(s), which the artist has brought to fruition especially for in the perpetual back and forth.  

26,778,780 minutes is made up of over 1,000 sheets of laser-etched, abaca fibre paper crafted by the artist as a labour of love. Etched into each sheet is a written piece entitled fork – a remembered then reimagined domestic moment from her childhood. In an accompanying audio, Maria grapples with the once familiar language of her mother tongue as she attempts to recite a Yoruba translation of fork. The piece considers the nuanced meanings of the term ‘desire lines’ as the artist tries to retrieve a lost self decades after being placed in a state care. Every day at 4pm the prints are momentarily dislodged by a gust of air, following which visitors are asked to carefully place any prints that have fallen to the floor back onto the plinth. In what Maria describes as a ‘soft performative role’ this activation blurs the boundary between audience observation and participation, provoking questions about how we relate and respond to a fragile artwork in a public gallery through a gesture of tenderness and collective care.

In contrast, episode(s) asks audiences to consider fragility from the perspective of carelessness. 45 indigo-dyed, laser-etched prints loosely installed in a corridor adjacent to the gallery, are slowly destroyed merely by walking past them. Each print holds two voices compressed together as they attempt to be in conversation – that of the artist and that of people who have given themselves permission to speak at her about her life, and in doing so silenced her. Visitors unavoidably activate the disintegration of the prints as whole passages, words and letters crumble, fall to the floor and get trodden underfoot.

in the perpetual back and forth forms part of Towner Eastbourne’s summer exhibition season, and was curated by Hollie Douglas, the third Future Collect Curatorial Trainee. Maria Amidu is the third artist in iniva’s Future Collect Commission partnership programme. Future Collect is a three-year programme designed to create a dynamic new model to transform the culture of commissioning and collecting within museums. Future Collect has been generously funded by Arts Council England, Art Fund, and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.