COLLABORATIVE WORK
WITH YUSSEF AGBO–OLA
OMI LIBATIONS
SCHERING STIFTUNG, BERLIN, GERMANY
25 APRIL – 7 JULY 2024
The exhibition OMI LIBATIONS is the result of a collaboration between the artist Tabita Rezaire, the artist-architect Yussef Agbo-Ola, and the biologists Alex Jordan and Anja Wegner from the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Konstanz.
Installation view of the exhibition Omi Libations at the Schering Stiftung, Berlin. Photo: © Jens Ziehe
The exhibition centers on a structure titled Omi: Yemoja Temple envisioned by the artists which is dedicated to the Yoruba Orisha Yemoja. In the pantheon of the West African Yoruba people, Yemoja is considered to be the mother spirit of rivers and oceans and all creatures living therein.
Installation view of the exhibition Omi Libations at the Schering Stiftung, Berlin. Photo: © Jens Ziehe
The exhibition focuses on water as the source of life. The conceptual foundation was laid by a research trip that Rezaire and Agbo-Ola undertook with the scientists. Their research took them to Zanzibar, an archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, and to Lake Tanganyika, where they studied the local water fauna including fish, corals, and micro-organisms.