These surfaces edges, corridors, windows, coordinates, and traces holding, performing, exist(ing), vanish(ing), acting as something other, or becoming something else. Where the nightclub becomes a Library, a roundabout becomes a site of revolution, a table becomes an altar, the carpark becomes a stage, and when my bus ride becomes my studio, meant for waiting and standing but now holding my stones,
these public spaces, these half-seen, half-spoken things made to be one thing, but unfixed,
placeholding, tracing, dusting and gathering,
unfolding into these loose fitting forms.
This project started with a Library; a starting point around public spaces, thinking between Central Library and Eastside Projects as surfaces for collective memory, re-imagination, rehearsing
— and monuments that are still existing within us which come back in ceilings, objects, representations, drawings, grey bricks and mirrors. These surfaces surround us, terraform us, are built within us, for us and against us, and act as rehearsal spaces where we continually recompose, plan, fail, reject, reimagine, and remake in, because it’s not about what this space is, or what it was, but about what it could become, and that's the echo we return to.
The Library is All of These, includes works by Motunrayo Akinola, Japhet Dinganga, and Jessie Tam at Eastside Projects, with new work by Japhet at Central Library, commissioned from a Library-led brief, reflecting on the past histories of the Library space as The Locarno Ballroom and Tiffany’s nightclub.
Curated by Lucy Grubb.
About Motunrayo
Motunrayo Akinola is a London-based artist who uses images of the home and everyday materials in his work. He explores timelines of access, comfort and a sense of belonging, using historical imagery and or text to contextualise narratives of today - thinking in sculpture/ installation, drawing, performance and sound.
Akinola’s work is activated by re-contextualising familiar objects, interrupting quick associations and creating moments of access into othered perspectives. Previous work has used food, domestic objects and packing materials. As a British-born Nigerian who feels comfortable in both contexts, Akinola’s work investigates systems and subtle cultural codings which work to maintain a sense of othering. He aims to create spaces which help question current society’s position on contemporary issues.
About Japhet
My practice is influenced by the everyday notion of being and becoming. I’m intrigued by ideas surrounding metaphysics and otology, as a sense of observation and depicting the relationship between man and the materialistic space.
Found objects and materials can instigate a history that shows evidence of humanitarian cultures, habits, and social understanding. My work is an exploration of these indications and ideas, and it is always open to one’s interpretation of the composition within the space in time. I am interested in making this relevant to the context of the Midlands by creating interventions into disused spaces that make up the local landscape, to consider how these spaces could be used better, and more beneficially for the local communities.
About Jessie
Jessie Tam(b. Hong Kong, 1993) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Manchester, UK. Her practice spans site-specific installation, drawing, sculpture, writing, and curation, exploring themes of memory, longing, belonging, displacement, and the notion of ‘home’ against the backdrop of personal exile. Using fragments—both physical and narrative—she crafts delicate scenes that hint at domestic situations wherein found or discarded objects and subtle pictorial and graphic interventions evoke the affective dimensions embedded in the simplicity and fragility of everyday life.
Her solo shows include It Has to Be Apart/It Has to Be Alone at Aco Art Space, Hong Kong, and Be Friend OK? at Mirco Gallery, Air Gallery, Manchester. Her works regularly appear in group exhibitions in UK, Europe and Hong Kong and have received recognition through awards and grants, such as the Cultural Exchange Grant from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (2024), Emerging Artist Grant (2022), and Amarte Fund (2022), Freelands Foundation Artists’ Bursaries (2024-25).
@jessie_tam_