Valerie Asiimwe Amani

In June 2022, the South London Gallery and The Roberts Institute of Art welcomed Valerie Asiimwe Amani as the first performance artist in residence.

Following the five week residency, Amani presented a new performance and installation in the main gallery.

The performance brought together Amani’s interests in the varied ways in which cultures intersect, be that through music, food, faith, texts or dialogue. For this presentation she was particularly interested in the locality of the gallery and the Caribbean and African diasporic communities that live in the area. The work focused on the space of the home, and the public and private relationships that form within domestic spaces. Through this performance Amani also explored how people experience and share these spaces and how one can be denied space within the home. The multi-sensory performance featured sound, both live and recorded, video, smell, text and an installation.

The work also featured artistic interventions from artists Rehema Chachage and Pamina Sebastião. Rehema looked at how the kitchen preserves communal knowledge through recipes and conversation. Pamina intervened in the bedroom as a place to challenge ideas of identity around childhood, queerness and art.

This partnership between the Roberts Institute of Art and the South London Gallery was rooted in a collaborative approach in which external, UK-wide nominators put forward a selection of artists who have had limited exposure in London, for consideration by a panel. The panel was composed of representatives from RIA, the South London Gallery as well as Korean-Canadian artist, Zadie Xa.

About Valerie Asiimwe Amani
Valerie Asiimwe Amani (b.1991) is a Tanzanian artist and writer working through multidisciplinary explorations of performative video, text, textile and installation. Her practice interrogates the ways in which body erotics, language, place and the metaphysical are used to situate (or isolate) the self in and out of community. She holds an MFA from The Ruskin School of Art and has exhibited internationally including The GRASSI Museum (Leipzig); Rele Gallery (Lagos) and The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (Cape Town).

About the Roberts Institute of Art
RIA is a non-profit contemporary arts organisation. RIA commissions pioneering performance art, collaborates with national partners on exhibitions and works to research and share the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. For over a decade the organisation has championed diverse performance work through commissions and innovative programming.
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