Overgrown

Work Exhibited: Yemaya Series: Yemaya Waves, Yemaya Moon, Yemaya Shells

Yemaya watches over all her children. 

Even if we have forgotten about her. 

Even if we extract, pollute and neglect her.

Like wire, she is malleable, resilient. 

Reminding us to always return to our roots,

There you will find the way forward.

These three textile collages honour Yemaya, the Yoruban Goddess of oceans and waters. Often symbolised by the moon, cowrie shells, and the number seven, she is the guardian of women and children, embodying love, healing, and fertility. In the midst of a global climate crisis, these works remind us to not forget our oceans and all the life they breathe into us. And perhaps solutions can be found by adapting mythological wisdom with new technologies.

Exhibition text from Tac.nu:

Overgrown is a call to step outside, but also an invitation to reconnect with the raw, untamed, and essential, both around us and within. This is not nostalgia, but remembering.

In a time when artificial rhythms shape our days: what have we forgotten? What have we overwritten with convenience, speed, and distraction? Through works that echo textures, slowness, colours, and harmony, Overgrown opens a space to succumb to our desire of merging back into the world. Let a vine grow off the saliva of your tongue, let your toes swell into slugs, let yourself dissolve into the landscape.

Overgrown is to realign, to re-enter a dialogue—with the world, with our body, with instinct.

Not a place we visit, but a place we belong.

Curator TAC: Urša Prek

Co-curator: Marie Caye

Photographs by Almicheal Fraay (_maikeljay)