Manifold Day is the celebration of the launch of the Manifold Archives, and a day-long event dedicated to celebrating the diverse and vibrant work of Black female artists through engaging and varied programming.

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It embodies our collaborative spirit and multi-hyphenate approach, creating a dynamic platform for artistic expression and cultural exchange with screenings, a talk, performance, and DJ set by Manifold artists.

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The day began with an open house during which Ayoade Bamgboye’s Oh Dear, 2022 was projected on loop and Manifold Archives was on display for all to flip through.

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At 18.30, we kicked off programming with two screenings:

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‍55 Days, 2022 by Ayo Akingbade is a portrait of New York City at dusk reveals the illuminated windows of high-rise apartments, brownstones, and bodegas, each glowing like light boxes, offering glimpses into the lives of neighbouring occupants. The scene is accompanied by ambient city sounds mixed with excerpts from the artist's diary, written during their fifty-five days in New York while working on a film called Keep Looking.

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‍Trading Memories Part I, 2022 by Olukemi Lijadu is a moving image work and soundscape that includes film, sound and photography and based on a collection of photos of a middle class family in Lagos:

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“I found these photographs in 2021 in an antique market in London’s Notting Hill. They were being sold amongst piles of otherwise discarded goods for two pounds. I was struck to find these photographs, a time capsule, far away from the point of their capture. The time and place where these photographs were taken were immediately clear to me, in a way that felt instinctual. I seemed to just know that this was a Nigerian Yoruba family in the early 2000s.

But what is it to just know? This is what I am investigating in this series of works. In Trading Memories Part I, I am investigating the photographs, not just as objects of memory and a family history but as a site of encounter, between myself and the images. I [am trying to] tease apart the moments of recognition and [to] focus on them. The photographs in the collection were largely based around the birthday celebrations of a young Nigerian girl. A recurring element in Trading Memories Part I is the close up which highlights moments of recognition - what are the things I saw or I could feel in these photographs which revealed a life that paralleled mine. The harmattan dust collected on the black polished buckled shoes, the texture of the birthday girl’s tulle “aunty give me cake” dress, crates of soft drinks in glass bottles, white socks, a Barbie birthday cake, all motifs from my own childhood having grown up in Lagos.”

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The screenings were closely followed by an artist talk between Oluwatobiloba Ajayi, Fadekemi Ogunsanya, and Emmanuelle Loca-Gisquet, moderated by Faridah Folawiyo on multidisciplinarity and process.

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Next, Ayoade Bamgboye, comedy writer and performer with not much to show for it, led our guests through a series of guided meditations laced with eerily calm rage and the desire for vengeance.

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We closed off the night by an iconic performance by DJ Kem Kem.

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