Fetissoes, 2023

Solo exhibition at God’s House Tower, Southampton

October 6th 2023 - November 26th 2023

‘Fetissoes’ is the dismissive, condescending word coined by 16th century Portuguese explorers to refer to African religious objects believed to have magical powers, known in English as ‘fetishes’.

In Fetissoes, Kialy speculates that a group of enslaved African people have jumped overboard a slave ship. In the water they encounter the master’s tools, European maritime technology such as periscopes and diving suits. With these materials they build fetishes for traditional African water deities. These take the form of wearable, 2 metre tall periscope suits. They invoke the deities’ power and protection by ritualistically wearing the suits and are able to re-cross the Atlantic underwater and return home.

The wearable sculptures hanging in the Main Gallery are failed, defective, prototype versions of the periscope suits, discovered at the bottom of the ocean and hung in a museum-like space rather than repatriated to their countries of origin. The rusted metal ‘Frames’ lie heaped in the Tower’s gunports.

In the Barker Mill Project Space, ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’, a short film featuring Jess Paris and an original soundtrack by Not Sarah, depicts the research and development for the periscope suits, advertises them as they were meant to be worn, and depicts the outcome of their failed mission. The film uses the visual language of modern Christian chain messages and memes to navigate Kialy’s own fraught relationship with Christianity as a colonial import, and to think about the gradual demonisation of traditional African religions and fetishes by Euro-Christian colonial forces. Pixelation and illegibility are used to synthesise the visual degradation of a widely shared memes, echoing the message degradation of the Christian message amidst slavery and colonialism.

Commissioned by ‘a space’ arts in partnership with Black History Month South.

Interview with Kialy Tihngang and 'a space' arts Curator and Programme Manager, Mia Delve

‘a space’ Artist Voices: In Conversation with Hollie Douglas, Kialy Tihngang & Ebun Sodipo

Expanded Exhibition Text

Audio Exhibition Description

Glossary of Terms

Arcade Campfa Digital Residency: Fetissoes