About

This exhibition explores the intersections of race and cultural identity through the practices of three contemporary artists of Indian and Ghanaian origin. The title “Fragments Folds and Frays” threads together the fragmented realities of the three artists concerning their post-colonial identities, histories, and experiences through their unravelling use of textiles in exploring colonial legacies, the unfolding of diverse cultural backgrounds and the fraying of traditional boundaries. The exhibition invites viewers to engage in thought-provoking dialogue around post-colonial identity, thought, environmental concerns, and the power of artistic expression in challenging and reimagining existing narratives.

Following a collaborative model, the artists Divya Sharma, Emmanuel Boateng and Patrick Tagoe-Turkson share this platform in questioning the much-used phrase, the ‘post-colonial’. They explore textiles in three different ways, asking the viewer to engage with questions about space, place, sense of belonging and racial hierarchies in contemporary artistic practice through a post-colonial lens. Through this exhibition, the artists are mobilising and intertwining their practices in questioning what it means to be black, brown, and underprivileged in British society, thus highlighting the experiences of marginalised communities and ‘breaking the chains of invisibility’.

A podcast for the Fragments Folds and Frays show at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery – featuring Emmanuel Boateng, Divya Sharma and Patrick Tagoe-Turkson is available HERE.