Grace Ndiritu: Healing The Museum

Healing The Museum is part of Grace Ndiritu’s long-term research project of the same name, which she initiated in 2012 as a response to the spiritual decline in cultural institutions. It also encompasses Ndiritu’s artist residency at S.M.A.K. Under the title A Spiritual Inventory of a 21st Century Museum, the artist has spent the past year reflecting with staff on how to shape the museum of the future.

Performance, film, social actions, shamanism, meditation, publications, textile work and research into museum collections are all part of this multi-layered exhibition project, in which she argues for the re-energization and ethicalization of the museum space and, by extension, the whole of society.

Intrigued by the question of what “embodied architecture” might mean, the artist has conceived the exhibition as a journey through space and time, incorporating a personal architectural design entitled The Spiritual Overlay. It follows the four cardinal directions and unfolds in temporal, contemplative moments.

Along the way Grace Ndiritu introduces visitors to urgent themes, including community, ecology, blackness, feminism and issues relating to indigenous peoples. The journey ends at The Temple, an architectural structure intended for a critical collection presentation but also a spiritual space for encounter, transformation and healing. Focused sessions and shamanic performances will take place in this sacred space, and in the direct presence of the artworks.