Cassi Namoda: To Live Long is To See Much

For this exhibition, the artist is presenting a new series of pantings made during lockdown this past summer at Namoda’s home studio in East Hampton, Long Island.

This body of work focuses on life experience, thresholds, and the passage of time in Africa. The exhibition presents a series of tableaus and various forms that weave narratives of magic realism into the verdant Mozambican landscape.

Namoda’s practice is rooted in cultural observation gained from a childhood spent growing up between Mozambique, Haiti and the United States. The result is work which incorporates Namoda’s various cultural and artistic references, often drawing on images from archival photographs, memories and imagination.

“It’s a very interesting and complex time,” says Namoda, referring to the context in which she has made this work while “thinking about the liberation of Southern African people and the state of diaspora currently in the United States.” This reflection is echoed in the exhibition’s title, which is taken from an accompanying short poetic text written by New York-based writer and Namoda’s research collaborator, Wesley Hardin.