Creating Patterns
2022
The name, Creating Patterns, is taken from seminal UK Afro-futurist group 4Hero who in 2001 released an album of the same name. The album is a dizzying mix of music genres: hip-hop, soul, jazz, spoken word and break beat. A turn of the millennium album, it embraces futurist and speculative narratives perhaps most embodied by the track ‘Twelve Tribes’. The exhibition uses the structure, title and track titles as a starting points for 15 new works. Each work takes its title from an album track from the Creating Patterns album. The works respond to the subject and title of the track. The 15 works manifest as a series of A1 posters, together with a recording of a performance/lecture by Offeh and a number of listening stations, for visitors to hear the original album. Visitors are invited to draw, doodle or write while they listen to the tracks. Creating Patterns extends Offeh’s interest in popular music and the structure and form of the album. In a previous series, Offeh has re-enacted album sleeves images by a variety of blacks artist from the 1970s and 1980s. In referencing Creating Patterns, Offeh continues his interest, strategies and approaches to embodying histories and archiving retro futures and speculative fictions.
Curated by Victoria Sharples
