A UNIQUE exhibition set across three galleries at Colchester Firstsite has opened, leading the artist to liken the set to “a homecoming.”
Libation, which is artist Everton’s Wright first solo exhibition, focusses on what it means to be black in modern Britain through drawings, sculptures, digital films, and photography.
One work key to the set is Wright’s ‘££Kissi Pennies$$’, a series of sculptures inspired by modern day migration and the former West African currency, which bears the same name.
Instead of coins, Kissi Pennies were iron rods which were used as a method of exchange in what is now known as Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The ‘££Kissi Pennies$$’ sculptures are formed partly out of handles from traditional-style afro combs, and partly out of 18th and 19th century-style Dutch furniture ornaments – a nod to the slave trade which saw hundreds of thousands of slaves transported to various Dutch colonies over hundreds of years.
A film called ‘Here I Stand’ also forms part of the exhibition by retelling the personal account of a woman who descended from parents of the Windrush Generation.
In the film, Ionie Richards follows the footsteps of her parents who travelled from the Caribbean to England in the 1950s, and explores their personal struggles as they attempted to make a new life for themselves.
Mr Wright said the exhibition also acts as a conversation with his ancestors and a homage to the Windrush generation – fitting given it is the 75th anniversary of the ship HMT Empire Windrush arriving in the UK from the Caribbean.
He said: “This exhibition feels like a homecoming. Firstsite showed Mother’s Touch, one of my works, during Covid which was a difficult time in my life when my mother passed away.
“Now I am having a conversation with my ancestors recent and distant – libation is paying homage to all these ancestors.
“As a descendant of parents from the Windrush generation, their influences will continue to resonate in my work, conversation and perception of my place in the world as a black British artist.”
The exhibition, which opened last Saturday, will run until the end of October.
To find out more information visit firstsite.uk.
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