The Enigma of Arrival
Studio Building, RCA Battersea, London, 2024"Diasporas are always categorised by various forms of absence.” - John Akomfrah
The Enigma of Arrival is a curatorial project consisting of three artist commissions and a workshop. Borrowing its title from V.S. Naipaul’s novel, it delves into the intersections of time, identity, and diaspora, reflecting the enigmatic nature of settling into a new time or place. Challenging linear time, this project explores the fragmented nature of diasporic experience, where memory, nostalgia, and rebirth intertwine in a haze of past and present.
Featuring commissioned works by Joshua Woolford, Rieko Whitfield, and Duong Thuy Nguyen, a synergistic blend of audio-visual, sculptural, and collaborative media is presented. Woolford’s peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must narrates a personal perspective within an unfamiliar landscape. Questions of the untold are manifested through a communication between Woolford’s dual-screen display and Whitfield’s Diasporing Terrains – an audio-visual installation resulting from an intimate workshop, redefining the concept of diaspora. Meditating on ideas of memory, belonging, and adaptation, this is framed by Nguyen’s We, Now, Here, There, Together, a sculptural display exploring diasporic communities and their ancestral ties.
We invite visitors to engage with the dynamic and multifaceted nature of diasporic existence.
Mark your arrival, feel the absence.
Artists: Duong Thuy Nguyen, Joshua Woolford, Rieko Whitfield
Curators: Ahwa Habeeb, Clara Lai, David Tomlinson, Hannah Dowling, Qinle Jin, Sylvia Tan, Yu Ying Chan
Photographer & Videographer: Wenxuan Wang
MA Curating Contemporary Art, School of Arts and Humanities, Royal College of Art
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Photography and videography by Wenxuan Wang