Zadie Xa: House Gods, Animal Guides and Five Ways 2 Forgiveness

Xa creates an ambitious installation where sculptures, textiles and paintings act as ‘tricksters’ and ‘shapeshifters’ in and amongst a large-scale fabric structure that is inspired by a traditional Korean home known as a hanok. Immersive lighting and audio transform the gallery’s historic architecture into a dreamscape that suggests ideas of liminality and transience.

Drawing on her own background, the works on display reflect the artist’s ongoing engagement with hybrid and diasporic identities, global history, folklore, and spiritual and religious rituals. Xa’s art seeks to elevate narratives that have been erased and repressed by the West and occupying powers. It is a means to analyse and process socio-political conditions and cultural behaviours through a lens of masquerade, play, costuming and storytelling.