Nyugen E. Smith’s Bundlehouse: Ancient Future Memory
12 January - 28 March 2023
Presented by CulturalDC
In-person nonprofit exhibition in D.C., with international accessibility via high-res, interactive virtual walk-through

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PRESS RELEASE

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS DROPBOX FOLDER OF IMAGE FILES

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS INTERACTIVE, VIRTUAL WALK-THROUGH

A new nonprofit solo exhibition of found-object works by the interdisciplinary artist Nyugen E. Smith—Bundlehouse: Ancient Future Memory—derives fresh influence from the artist’s recent studies on ancient ritual objects of the Indigenous-Congolese Luba people, while furthering his overall exploration of European colonialism’s historical and present-day effects on descendants of the Black African diaspora.

In Bundlehouse: Ancient Future Memory, Luba objects like the Lukasa (memory board) and ceremonial axes and stools find context in Smith’s ongoing Bundlehouse series, which uses found-object to represent layered identities of Black African diasporic descendants. By making new wholes out of incongruous objects of disparate origin—while formally alluding to the salvaged-material chicken coops and vernacular architecture Smith grew up seeing across 1980s-Trinidad—Bundlehouse (and this new installment thereof) addresses themes including memory, architecture, climate change, and the notion of rebuilding after trauma.

In addition to studio art, Smith's creative practice includes written and performance mediums. Concurrent to the gallery exhibition (Bundlehouse: Ancient Future Memory) is the debut of Smith's latest performance piece, While You Sleep (An Excerpt from a Jouvay Dream II). A narrative composition that takes place during Carnival season somewhere in the Caribbean (an intentionally ambiguous locale that embodies an amalgamation of Caribbean cultural elements), the piece is Smith’s stage adaptation of an original short story that he wrote in response to Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite’s remarks on “the need for a ritual to keep the souls of the millions of enslaved Africans who perished during the transatlantic journey from coming back to haunt us.”

More information is in the above-linked press release, and a preview of imagery is below. See the Dropbox folder linked above to download high-resolution image files. Image usage must be with credit to the artist and CulturalDC, unless otherwise indicated in the file title (such as headshots).