‘A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION IS NEEDED’ illuminates Ireland’s topographical significance within the Black Atlantic by framing the country as a place of creative convergence between America and Europe. Through her exhibition of these transnational cultural offshoots, curator Beulah Ezeugo interrogates our conceptualisation of borders and explores how these ideations have shaped our individual and collective identities. On first impression, Ireland may not appear as overtly enmeshed in the Black Atlantic as the United States or Great Britain, however, a conversation with Ezeugo revealed otherwise.
Working as both an artist and curator, Ezeugo’s creative practice is coloured by an uncompromising engagement with postcolonial geographies and memory studies. Her latest project, ‘A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION IS NEEDED’, is no exception.
‘A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION IS NEEDED’ visualises Ezeugo’s curiosity about Black artists working in an Irish context
Born from general meditations on the status of contemporary Irish art, ‘A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION IS NEEDED’ visualises Ezeugo’s curiosity about Black artists working in an Irish context. “I spoke with Black artists from the US who had recently moved to Europe”, she explains, “and they observed that while racism is just as potent here, it manifests differently and has a different effect”. This reminded Ezeugo of the “‘diaspora wars’ that took place online a few years ago, where Twitter users from the global African diaspora argued about their core differences”. She notices how in-person conversations are more similarity-oriented. Ezeugo endeavoured to facilitate such open exchange in ‘A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION IS NEEDED’. She elaborates that she’s “intrigued by the sounds that emerge from a public space, like a marketplace or a website like Twitter, where various discourses happen simultaneously – people talking over each other, often arriving at similar conclusions, but from different starting points and in different languages”. Certainly under Ezeugo’s curatorial direction, MART Gallery transformed into such a space.
It’s Dublin’s dynamic population and cultural identity, Ezeugo says, that renders the city a fitting stage for this conversation about transformation. She names Ireland’s paradoxical relationship with immigration and globalisation as adding an interesting dimension to the exhibition. Although Irish people “have rarely remained within their geographic boundaries and possess considerable global influence because of this”, a complicated relationship with its immigrant population has strained the nation’s reputation for openness and tolerance.
The featured artists – Jordan/Martin Hell, Isaac Harris and Clodagh Assata Boyce – work independently in their own narrative space, but are unified by their prizing of language and oration. Ezeugo notes that “Jordan was editing his poetry book to accompany his sound piece; Isaac had just finished editing their novel and was experimenting with adapting parts of it into a play; Clodagh had been inviting friends into their home to conduct oral histories”. Despite these projects developing in different locations – Ohio, Dublin and Virginia respectively – Ezeugo realised Dublin’s potential to act as a “central node” from which “connections between their diverse perspectives” could be found, all while upholding the artists’ individual subjectivities.
This structural reconfiguration aligns with Ezeugo’s vision of the curator as a force of transformation. “The ideal outcome [of curation] is that others are transformed in some way by what you’ve presented”, she distils. “Caretaker” and “mediator” are other roles that spring to Ezeugo’s mind. On a pragmatic, less romantic level, however, she notes how curation “involves spending a lot of time and energy designing a container for your own interests” and that sometimes this proclamation of personal interest can feel embarrassing and exposing.
Keeping with this notion of transformation, Ezeugo was asked to expand on the show’s thematic exploration of transcendence. “It reflects a shared acknowledgement of the challenges of being ‘here’ and the desire to exist ‘elsewhere’ or to live otherwise,” she begins, before citing government inaction over “the extinction of entire populations and ecosystems” as prompting global conversation “about not just change, but complete overhaul”. The exhibition’s frequent reference to “transformation” and “boundaries” is emblematic of this societal gravitation towards radical, revolutionary alternatives. “In a sense, it’s about identifying the tools needed to move beyond the present moment into something better for all of us”. The exhibition title is a referential nod to Lola Olufemi’s Experiments in Imagining Otherwise in which “she offers a provocation to invent the future now”. This intertextuality designates ‘A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION IS NEEDED’ as an agent of both artistic and ideological change.
Ezeugo’s curation is shaped by the proliferating xenophobia that has gripped the country
As a creative working against the “rapid tightening and regularisation of borders”, Ezeugo’s curation is shaped by the proliferating xenophobia that has gripped the country in recent times. She recounts how at the show’s opening, she “had a conversation with a guest who, in reference to a provocation about race within one of the artworks ,said something like ‘You could say these things openly a few years ago, but now you have to be careful’”. Regrettably, she recognises that exhibiting artwork pertaining to race and immigration runs the risk of aggravating an already hateful and combative demographic. This was unfortunately the case in 2019 when a group of angry white Irish men tried to hijack an arts-based workshop hosted by Ezeuga and a migrant activist group. She worries that “as the government and Gardaí cede more ground to these groups, this strategy of intimidation becomes increasingly effective. It affects what discussions occupy space in the public discourse, and shifts the boundaries of what can be expressed”.
Irish borders culpable in the brutalisation and destruction of the Palestinian people
Beyond the regulation of a physical geographical area, Ezeugo’s curation addresses how the concept of the border conditions our everyday lives. ‘A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION IS NEEDED’ itself was affected by the red tape that so often accompanies borders. Owing to “the bureaucracy, personal toll, and costs” that borders entail, artist Jordan was unable to attend the show’s installation and launch. Ezeugo also finds Irish borders culpable in the brutalisation and destruction of the Palestinian people, observing how “Shannon Airport is currently being used to transport weapons of war between Israel and the United States” without the consent of the Irish people. In this way Ezeugo challenges the prevailing narrative that borders are instruments of protection and democracy, instead asking her audiences to consider the ways in which borders are violently and forcefully enacted upon ourselves and others.
Although ‘A TOTAL TRANSFORMATION IS NEEDED’ has since ended, its ruminations on identity and borders are enduring. Through her curation of Black artists who write, Ezeugo encouraged viewers to consider language and art’s constructive and deconstructive potential. More information on Beulah Ezeugo’s work can be found at https://bio.site/beulahezeugo.
