What Was Lost Between Worlds

Part of the exhibition:

In Yoruba cosmology, the Egúngún is more than a costume; it is a living archive where cloth, gesture, rhythm, and ancestral breath form an encoded knowledge system. When the conditions that sustain this system shift — through migration, suppression, or cultural disconnection — the archive begins to loosen.


What Was Lost Between Worlds visualises this moment of rupture. Set within a dawn-lit sacred grove, an Egúngún appears in its full embodied force. Gradually, a spectral trace of colonial architecture emerges, and the figure begins to dissolve into particles of light and symbols. Adire patterns, Ifá binary marks, and abstract data points swirl into the air, suspended as if undecided between disappearance and persistence.


The work asks: when embodied knowledge is severed from its land, does it vanish, or does it transform into another mode of being?



In Yoruba cosmology, the Egúngún is more than a costume; it is a living archive where cloth, gesture, rhythm, and ancestral breath form an encoded knowledge system. When the conditions that sustain this system shift — through migration, suppression, or cultural disconnection — the archive begins to loosen.


What Was Lost Between Worlds visualises this moment of rupture. Set within a dawn-lit sacred grove, an Egúngún appears in its full embodied force. Gradually, a spectral trace of colonial architecture emerges, and the figure begins to dissolve into particles of light and symbols. Adire patterns, Ifá binary marks, and abstract data points swirl into the air, suspended as if undecided between disappearance and persistence.


The work asks: when embodied knowledge is severed from its land, does it vanish, or does it transform into another mode of being?

In Yoruba cosmology, the Egúngún is more than a costume; it is a living archive where cloth, gesture, rhythm, and ancestral breath form an encoded knowledge system. When the conditions that sustain this system shift — through migration, suppression, or cultural disconnection — the archive begins to loosen.

What Was Lost Between Worlds visualises this moment of rupture. Set within a dawn-lit sacred grove, an Egúngún appears in its full embodied force. Gradually, a spectral trace of colonial architecture emerges, and the figure begins to dissolve into particles of light and symbols. Adire patterns, Ifá binary marks, and abstract data points swirl into the air, suspended as if undecided between disappearance and persistence.

The work asks: when embodied knowledge is severed from its land, does it vanish, or does it transform into another mode of being?

Artworks

The Goove became Graveyard, 2026

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At the Osun Grove, the masquerade spins uncontrollably until it unravels, sending out a shockwave that destroys the sacred site. The work reflects on rupture, loss and the fragility of spiritual space.

Medium: Video
Technique: Photography, moving image and generative digital processes
Includes a print, 70 × 39.1 cm (unframed)
Edition of 5 pairs of artworks

€3,000 ex VAT

The disappearance of the Icon, 2026

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In a village in Ouidah, the masquerade levitates and spins as its materials break apart into nothingness. The work explores disappearance, transformation and the vanishing of embodied ancestral memory.

Medium: Video
Technique: Photography, moving image and generative digital processes
Includes a print, 50.7 × 70 cm (unframed)
Edition of 5 pairs of artworks

€3,000 ex VAT

What was written about us, 2026

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In Ile-Ife, the masquerade folds dramatically into itself and transforms into a colonial book about Yoruba culture. The work explores the shift from embodied ancestral knowledge to knowledge recorded and interpreted through colonial frameworks.

Medium: Video
Technique: Photography, moving image and generative digital processes
Includes a print, 70 × 68.9 cm (unframed)
Edition of 5 pairs of artworks

€3,000 ex VAT

Water holds the memory, 2026

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At Erin Waterfalls, the masquerade spins until its body dissolves into a puddle of red, blue and white. The work considers transformation, asking what remains when a vessel of ancestral memory loses its physical form.

Medium: Video
Technique: Photography, moving image and generative digital processes
Includes a print, 38.8 × 70 cm (unframed)
Edition of 5 pairs of artworks

€3,000 ex VAT

The Last Toll, 2026

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Set on the Black River in Benin, a Zangbeto masquerade figure spins with increasing force until its body begins to come apart. What remains is a single brass bell (agogo in Yoruba) synonymous with Yoruba culture, known for its calling into the spirit realm. The work considers what survives when ritual, memory and material culture are separated from one another.

Medium: Video
Technique: Photography, moving image and generative digital processes
Includes a print, 59.0 × 70 cm (unframed)
Edition of 5 pairs of artworks

€3,000 ex VAT

Nothing left at the end, 2026

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At the Badagry shoreline, an Egúngún stands beneath an approaching storm, slowly raising its arms before evaporating into the atmosphere. The work reflects on memory, rupture and the shoreline as a threshold between worlds.

Medium: Video

Technique: Photography, moving image and generative digital processes
Includes a print, 70 × 70 cm (unframed)
Edition of 5 pairs of artworks

€3,000 ex VAT

Time slipped beyond the story, 2026

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In a shrine in Iseyin, an Egúngún remains still as plants and weeds gradually overrun the space. The work reflects on time, abandonment and the slow obscuring of culture and ancestral presence.

Medium: Video

Technique: Photography, moving image and generative digital processes
Includes a print, 70 × 70 cm (unframed)
Edition of 5 pairs of artworks

€3,000 ex VAT

The Ancestors Left, 2026

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Within an Oyo palace, the masquerade collapses into a heap as ancestral spirits leave its shell. The work reflects on absence, survival, and the relationship between material form and spiritual presence.

Medium: Video

Technique: Photography, moving image and generative digital processes
Includes a print, 70 × 70 cm (unframed)

Edition of 5 pairs of artworks

€3,000 ex VAT

When the threads unravel, 2026

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In Balogun market, the masquerade unravels thread by thread until it returns to the raw materials from which it was made. The work considers unmaking, asking what remains when a sacred form is reduced to its parts.

Medium: Video

Technique: Photography, moving image and generative digital processes
Includes a print, 70 × 70 cm (unframed)
Edition of 5 pairs of artworks

€3,000 ex VAT

ADDRESS

Carrer Llull, 134, 08005 Barcelona, Spain

CONTACT

visit@load-gallery.com


Private visits and events:
isabel@load-gallery.com

SIGN UP FOR UPDATES
OPENING HOURS

Thursday, Friday and Saturday
4 PM — 8 PM


Gallery admission is free

@Load Gallery 2023-2026

ADDRESS

Carrer Llull, 134, 08005 Barcelona, Spain

CONTACT

visit@load-gallery.com


Private visits and events:
isabel@load-gallery.com

SIGN UP FOR UPDATES

OPENING HOURS

Thursday, Friday and Saturday
4 PM — 8 PM


Gallery admission is free

@Load Gallery 2023-2026

ADDRESS

Carrer Llull, 134, 08005 Barcelona, Spain

CONTACT

visit@load-gallery.com


Private visits and events:
isabel@load-gallery.com

SIGN UP FOR UPDATES
OPENING HOURS

Thursday, Friday and Saturday
4 PM — 8 PM


Gallery admission is free

@Load Gallery 2023-2026