WE ARE HISTORY
RACE, COLONIALISM & CLIMATE CHANGE
Opening next week, Somerset House presents We Are History, a new group exhibition curated by Ekow Eshun featuring 11 acclaimed international artists. The exhibition offers a different perspective on humanity's impact on the planet by tracing the complex interrelations between today’s climate crisis and the legacies of colonialism.
16 OCT 2021 - 06 FEB 2022
TERRACE ROOMS, SOUTH WING
FREE, PAY WHAT YOU CAN
Showcasing photography, prints, textile, installation and video, We Are History presents works which are moving, lyrical and thought-provoking, capturing nature as a place of both beauty and fragility. Featuring artists Alberta Whittle, Allora & Calzadilla, Carolina Caycedo, Louis Henderson, Malala Andrialavidrazana, Mazenett Quiroga, Otobong Nkanga, Zineb Sedira and a newly commissioned work by multidisciplinary artist Shiraz Bayjoo, We Are History interrogates the environmental issues facing the southern hemisphere by looking to the past and drawing important insight from the cultural practices and knowledge systems of indigenous peoples.
"The artworks in We Are History are lyrical, moving and historically charged. They seek to address climate crisis, not directly or didactically, but with a poetry and nuance that expands the visual framework we bring to the subject. By preferencing perspectives from the global South, the exhibition also identifies environmental change as a racial process with deep roots in colonial history."
Ekow Eshun, Curator
Opening to coincide with 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, We Are History spotlights the works of artists with personal connections to countries in the Caribbean, South America and Africa, bringing to the fore the perspectives of their communities, not as an afterthought in climate debates, but as the source of resonant ideas and imagery related to social and environmental justice.
