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Okwui Okpokwasili: You’re not the woman on the motorcycle in Faluyi, with the sparkly dress, driving down the road into the unknown with courage and bravery?
Ayo Akingbade: I could be her…
Now available to preorder, Show Me The World Mister is Ayo Akingbade’s first publication, developing work from her touring exhibition of the same name. Centring two films, The Fist and Faluyi, shot on location in Nigeria, the book builds on Akingbade’s cinematic interrogations of history and place, addressing interwoven histories of industrialisation and family.
Originally shot on 35mm film, The Fist is an intimate portrait of a modernist style factory – the first Guinness brewery built outside of Ireland and the UK, located in Nigeria, 12 miles from the centre of Lagos on the Ikeja Industrial Estate. Completed in 1962, in the wake of Nigeria’s independence from Britain, Akingbade aims to highlight the politics embedded in the beverage’s production, by focusing on the way the workers move in the factory. Faluyi follows protagonist Ife as she embarks on a meditative journey tracing familial legacy and mysticism within ancestral land. Shot on 16mm film in the Idanre Hills – a UNESCO World Heritage site in Ondo State, the birthplace of Akingbade’s parents – the film is an introspective contemplation of the artist’s own personal relationship with Nigeria, and her sense of the future.
Featuring diary entries, behind the scenes images from locations in Lagos and Idanre, as well as exhibition installation views, Show Me The World Mister documents the processes and ideas behind Ayo Akingbade’s work. Written contributions by Steven Cairns, Maryam Kazeem, and Gboyega Odubanjo, expand upon and contextualise Akingbade’s practice. So, too, does a conversation between Akingbade and Okwui Okpokwasili.
Ayo Akingbade lives and works in London. She has exhibited and screened widely, including presentations at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Sao Pāulo; Towner Gallery, Eastbourne; amongst others. Recent screenings include; New Directors/New Films; MoMA and Directors’ Fortnight; Cannes Film Festival. Her first major solo institutional exhibition, Show Me The World Mister, opened at Chisenhale Gallery, London in November 2022 and is touring until 2024, at venues including Spike Island, Bristol and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.
This publication is co-published by Book Works and Chisenhale Gallery, with support from John Hansard Gallery and Ms. Ebele Okobi. Book Works and Chisenhale Gallery are National Portfolio Organisations of Arts Council England.
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Book launch: That Fire Over There by Prem Sahib
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Friday 8 September, 6–8pm
Phillida Reid
10 – 16 Grape Street
London, WC2H 8DY
Free and open to all
Come and join Book Works and Phillida Reid gallery for the launch of the new book by Prem Sahib, That Fire Over There at Phillida Reid, Grape Street on 8 September.
That Fire Over There takes fire as a metaphor for ideas around queer attachment, proximity, and personal and collective transformation. It also excavates the history of a real fire which in 1981 destroyed the Hambrough Tavern – a contested site symbolic of provocation and conflict against far-right groups in Southall, west London, where Prem Sahib grew up.
Prem Sahib will also have a new solo exhibition, The Life Cycle of a Flea, opening at Phillida Reid on 6 October 2023.
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August Book of the Month: Today in History/Tarihte Bugün
Parodying the format of a regular newspaper column, Today in History/Tarihte Bugün presents a series of drawings and paraphrased stories, extracted from Turkish newspapers from the last four decades. The news stories are sometimes poetic, sometimes overtly political, and sometimes strangely surreal. Dislocated from their original context and presented as an artist’s impression, the work reveals a changing society, and questions what we perceive to be news and the construction of truth, fiction and history. The text is presented in parallel in both Turkish and English.
Co-published by Book Works and Platform Garanti, and edited with November Paynter, it was the third in a series of co-publishing partnerships initiated by Book Works, entitled Fabrications, commissioned and edited by Gerrie van Noord.
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Upcoming titles for Readers Club members
The Book Works Readers Club is a great way to support the work we do and to build your own library of artist books. For just £5/month or £50/year you’ll receive a copy of everything we publish as soon as it is ready.
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