Solo Exhibition “ A Riparian Lore” by Leo Asemota
July 31, 2025 – September 6, 2025
Opening: July 31, 2025
Hangar- Center for Artistic Research
Free Entry
“A Riparian Lore” is an exhibition of new works by Leo Asemota as part of “The Ens Project” an on-going art work.
Asemota distils from oral tradition as well as knowledge set down in writing, of the encounter and exchanges between the peoples of the kingdoms of Benin and Portugal that began in the 16th century during the reigns of Oba (King) Esigie of Benin and King Manuel of Portugal. The exhibition opens with works on vellum, presented in frames and boxes made from Sapele wood. These works will be evolved further through a live art work titled “The Navigator’s Manoeuvre” in which Asemota uses the Portuguese explorer and navigator João Afonso de Aveiro as an avatar.
“A Riparian Lore” is the seventh site-specific chapter in “Eo ipso” the third phase of “The Ens Project”. Previous chapters in this third phase were realised at Tate Modern London (2012), The British Museum London (2013), Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah (2018), Pitt Rivers Museum Oxford (2022) and Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin (2022).
The Ens Project is Asemota’s long-standing work. Its formative sources are the Edo people of Benin’s tradition of art and ceremony; Victorian Britain’s age of expansion among which brought about the sacking and looting of the ancient Kingdom of Benin; and the essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by the German theorist Walter Benjamin (1892 – 1940). The Ens Project thus far comprise three phases: First Principles (2005 – 2008), The Handmaiden (2009 – 2012) and Eo ipso, (2012 – Ongoing).
Leo Asemota is an Edo native with places of residence in London England and in his birthplace Benin City Nigeria