Echoes of Identity

A Contemporary Narrative by Art Africa

This exhibition, co curated by Femi Odunlami and Sani Sani, explores the layered, fluid dialogues surrounding artistic identity and individuality. It reflects on how African heritage and diasporic experience influence, complicate, and enrich the creative self.

The exhibition also investigates how cultural memory, myth, migration, dual nationality, displacement, and globalism shape our understanding of identity. It asks: How do artists carry, question, or reconstruct inherited narratives? How do they navigate the space between belonging and becoming — between ancestral ties and personal autonomy?

Bringing together voices from both the continent and the diaspora, Echoes of Identity highlights the tensions between origin and evolution, tradition and innovation, community and individuality. At its heart, it honours the freedom of artistic expression — the right to define oneself beyond heritage, while still acknowledging the echoes it leaves behind.

Through painting, photography, and sculpture, the participating artists present a contemporary narrative — one not confined by borders or binaries, but grounded in multiplicity, authenticity, and creative sovereignty.

Open during library opening hours. Closed Sundays and bank holidays.