Exhibition in the perpetual back and forth Maria Amidu

Maria Amidu is the third artist in iniva’s Future Collect Commission partnership programme. Her exhibition, in the perpetual back and forth (4 May – 8 September 2024) opens at the Towner Eastbourne. The exhibition curated by Hollie Douglas with curatorial support from Sara Cooper and Rohini Malik-Okon.

The exhibition centres around 26,778,780 minutes, a new paper and text-based installation and accompanying sound piece which explores the dialogue between paper and writing. Featuring over 1000 sheets of laser-etched handmade abaca fibre paper, the work evokes a sense of absence and longing, considering the nuanced meanings of the term ‘desire lines.’

Once a week, on Sunday afternoon, air blown into the gallery will cause the prints to momentarily move outside their designated location. Once each print has settled to the floor after this activation, audiences will be asked to put them back in place. In what Maria describes as a ‘soft performative role’ public involvement becomes part of the work, provoking questions about how we relate and respond to a fragile artwork in a public gallery, through a gesture of tenderness and collective care. The exhibition includes a complete installation of episode(s). The artist has also selected three paintings from Towner Eastbourne’s collection to show alongside the new work. Accompanying the exhibition is a publication also titled in the perpetual back and forth which includes a commissioned essay by Gilane Tawadros.

About the artist

Maria Amidu’s artistic concerns are influenced by the complexities of the relational – between people, and between people and place. Through writing, printmaking, artist’s books, audio visual works and sometimes glassmaking she tries to substantiate what might be going on in collective situations, paying specific attention to what is hidden, obscured or unspoken.

Maria studied glass and ceramics at West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham and the Royal College of Art, London. She is currently undertaking doctoral research in the School of Arts & Humanities at the Royal College of Art and the title of her project is Materialising the voice to speak from the liminal: a conversation about carelessness.

About Future Collect

iniva partnership project commissions a new work by an artist of African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern or Asian heritage living and working in the UK. The work will be collected and exhibited by three major British institutions (previously Manchester City Art Gallery and Hepworth Wakefield). The exhibition will be supported with a public programme of events and engagement activities contributing to a wider public debate on collections and whose heritage is being preserved.

Future Collect is generously supported by Art Fund, Arts Council England and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Image: ©Maria Amidu, 26,778,780 minutes, work in progress, 2023