Salote Tawale's work YOU, ME, ME, YOU (2022) features footage made by the artist, family and friends; it is a montage of imagery that combines role-play, television reenactments, social media posts and an imaginary pop music video. Exploring themes of proximity, distance and friendship, this new work includes a cast of collaborators, from Tawale's relatives, to her artist friends, the queer community in Australia and a chosen family of individuals who have been brought together by diasporic contexts, living and working away from homelands. Re-performing aspects of their shared experiences, the participants depict the loneliness, comfort, inspiration and support found within these familial and friendship networks during a period of isolation and restriction due to COVID-19. Tawale’s video is a dedication to these important relationships in all their forms and a celebration of how our differences can unite us during difficult times.

 
Following the success of his first moving image work, Her Dreams Are Bigger (2018), Osman Yousefzada returned to the subcontinent for the production of his new digital commission. Filmed in sites of ritual in Pakistan, Spaces of Transcendence (2022) is a story of environments, characters and gestures. Here a secret language and its repetition is deployed in accessing a space of transcendence where the needs of marginalised voices are fulfilled. Occupying centre ground, and recognised as vehicles of access to another realm or to the divine, are the Fakir/Yogi (Brides of God), the Khawaja Sara (a Transgender person) and the Feminine Male (distinct from a Khawaja Sara). Shrines/cemeteries, alams (pennon/flags), bathing rituals, hand and body movements and the dying of cloth and its fibres are the backdrop for this transformative magic.

The new works by Salote Tawale and Osman Yousefzada will launch online via Ikon and MCA websites.

Ikon’s second floor is dedicated to a solo exhibition, OUT OF FRAME, by Nigerian artist Abdulrazaq Awofeso, who has recently arrived in Birmingham from Lagos. It comprises work made entirely from discarded wooden pallets. Widely used to transport goods around the world, this material forms a metaphor of human migration, as well as the artist’s own frequent journeys between Nigeria, South Africa and Europe.

Lastly in Ikon’s Tower Room Ikon present the work of Haffendi Anuar, an artist from Malaysia, whose work spans sculpture, painting, installation and drawing. Based in both Kuala Lumpur and London, Anuar’s experience of life between continents has led to an interest in using his creative practice to explore postcolonialism, architecture, ways of living and identity construction. This exhibition, titled Rumah Berkaki (Legged House), brings together Unit (2021) - sculpture which explores the iconography of the kain pelikat, a colourful sarong worn by men across South and South-East Asia for centuries - and Cobweb (2021) - paintings which revise existing photographs from the artist’s family albums and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.

This summer Ikon presents a solo exhibition, OUT OF FRAME, by Nigerian artist Abdulrazaq Awofeso. Having recently arrived in Birmingham from Lagos, Awofeso shows all new work as part of Ikon’s Arrivals programme (June - August), concerned with the international movement of people and ideas and organised to coincide with the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
 
Awofeso’s work for Ikon is made entirely from discarded wooden pallets. Used to transport goods around the world, this widely used material forms a metaphor of human migration, as well as the artist’s own frequent journeys between Nigeria, South Africa and Europe.
 
His figures take the form of wall reliefs, freestanding sculptures and installations. Each figure is individually carved and painted by hand. Their physical traits and vibrant colours are inspired by the people he meets on his travels and subcultures such as the social movement La Sape. Prevalent in Kinshasa and Brazzaville (Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of Congo respectively), the colourful, sartorial style of La Sape originated as a response to colonial rule and western ‘dandy’ fashion. The artist’s reference to collective identities give his figures the quality of universal portraits. Their individualised forms, however, resist cultural or racial categorisation.

Do You Know Who I Am (2022) represents people who Awofeso met on a visit to the UK from Nigeria in 2021. During the trip he and fellow travellers were held in Amsterdam, as the UK government imposed a swift ban on arrivals from Nigeria due to the country’s then rising cases of Covid-19. A number of the sculptural portraits depict people wearing masks, reminding us how much face coverings have become part of our physical and social identity. Another portrait shows a man in sunglasses playing a saxophone, symbolising the jazz musicians and communities encountered by Awofeso in Birmingham and Nigeria. Resembling wall reliefs, these profile portraits are in fact freestanding sculptures displayed on floating shelves. A large portrait accompanies these works, its relief format reflecting the quasi-flat sculptures.
 
Several works in the exhibition respond to the gallery’s architecture. A shaped doorway mirrors the rectangular forms of Boujee (2021–22), a series of figures displayed on custom-made plinths at different heights. An installation of 3,000 individually-carved figures, Avalanche of Calm (2021–22), fills the floor of an entire gallery. They embody the modern city, where people from all walks of life come together. Suspended above the miniature figures are wooden clouds, their subdued hues recalling the overcast British weather. In life, passing clouds often remind us of the ephemerality of human existence. Awofeso’s installation evokes this and the relative smallness of people in relation to the cosmos – at the same time as humanity’s collective strength.
 
A fully-illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. Designed by Laura Jaunzems, it features an essay on Awofeso’s work by writer and art historian Aurella Yussuf and a conversation between the artist and Linzi Stauvers, Head of Learning, Ikon.
 
Abdulrazaq Awofeso’s exhibition is supported by the Ikon Investment Fund.