After our first gallery walk collaboration in May sold out in record time, artsUCL and Project Active are teaming up once again -- and this time, we’re making it even bigger and better for Welcome Season! 🪢🎉
This time around: To celebrate Black History Month, we will be visiting Owusu-Ankomah's commemorative exhibition ‘Freedom Rising’ at the October Gallery and going on a walk through the vibrant heart of Bloomsbury, exploring things to do near campus along the way! Come with a friend or alone to look at some cool art, meet new people over a coffee, and get your steps in for the day. 🏛️🤸🏻♀️🏺
**Note: ticket price includes a hot beverage ☕️
⏰ Meeting point: 2:00pm at Gordon's Café.
Exhibition and Accessibility Information:
Freedom Rising: The Art of Owusu-Ankomah comprises intriguing large-scale paintings on canvas which depict an alternative world abounding with symbols and monumental human figures.
When starting out, Owusu-Ankomah’s work drew largely on ancient African traditions of rock painting and masquerade, before his figures shed their masks and became mute actors afloat in an ocean of signs. Employing a studied trompe l’oeil effect, the powerful figures’ finely sculpted bodies are themselves covered in similarly painted glyphs. These cause the figures to melt into the background forest of signs, where the hidden figures move within a symbolic realm that surrounds, supports and inevitably defines them. Originally, the accompanying signs were all derived from the adinkra symbol set embodying the traditional wisdom of the Akan people of Owusu-Ankomah’s native Ghana. However, over time symbols from other sources and diverse cultures have also been added, including many novel glyphs devised by the artist himself.
October Gallery is within easy walking distance of UCL's Bloomsbury Campus. Accessibility Information can be found on their website here.