Grace Ndiritu
Visual Arts recipient 2024
Grace Ndiritu (b. 1982) is a British-Kenyan artist whose artworks are concerned with the transformation of our contemporary world. Ndiritu works across mediums and social practice and her archive of over forty ‘hand-crafted’ videos, textiles, photography, performances, paintings and architectural spaces have been widely exhibited.
In 2012, Ndiritu began creating a new body of work under the title Healing The Museum, which sets out to re-introduce non-rational healing methodologies such as shamanism to re-activate the ‘sacredness’ of art spaces. This has involved researching rural, alternative and often spiritual communities, training in esoteric studies such as shamanism, and exploring new ways to connect with audiences.
Recent solo exhibitions and projects include Labour, Kate MacGarry, London (2023); Healing The Museum, S.M.A.K, Ghent (2023); Grace Ndiritu Reimagines The Fomu Collection, Fotomuseum, Antwerp (2023 – 2024). Group exhibitions include Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia and friends, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2023); Interdependencies Perspectives on Care and Resilience, Migros, Zurich (2023); and Our Silver City, 2094 at Nottingham Contemporary (2021).
Ndiritu is a member of BAFTA. In 2022, she was the winner of The Film London Jarman Award for her films Black Beauty (2021) and Becoming Plant (2022), which were selected for prestigious film festivals including 72nd Berlinale (2022) FIDMarseille (2021) and BFI London Film Festival (2022).
“The Paul Hamlyn Artist Award means a lot to me at this turning point of my career, when I am expanding into directing my first narrative feature film entitled HIPPIE, finishing my first novel about museums, and continuing to create ambiguous new artworks for exhibition. Having the stability and time to focus, is key to maintaining good mental health as an artist.”
Examples of work
LABOUR: BIRTH OF A NEW MUSEUM, 2023
Performance film commissioned by RAMM Exeter, on the occasion of the exhibition Earth Spells: Witches of the Anthropocene (2023). For RAMM’s exhibition a new Protest Carpet – MOTHERHOOD was created to connect to what Ndiritu describes as, ‘spirituality and ecological communities’. It became ‘activated’ by pregnant women in a performance at RAMM documented in the film. Ndiritu described this opportunity, ‘to think about lineage and the legacy of keeping indigenous ideas current as well as thinking about ecology’.
Presented as part of 2024 Group show – Glucksman, Cork, 2023 Solo show – Kate MacGarry, London, 2023 Group show – Migros, Zurich, and 2023 Group show – RAMM, Exeter.
LABOUR: BIRTH OF A NEW MUSEUM, 2023
Textiles and video, variable. The intimate filmed performance invited a group of pregnant participants on a shamanic journey to discover the ‘soul’ name of their unborn child. Ndiritu often links being on a physical journey through an exhibition to a sensory transformation of its space and collective care through the use of textiles in her practice. For Labour she created three Protest Carpets for the audience to sit and inhabit. Ndiritu’s early studies in textile art inspire her current use of textiles in her practice today.
Presented as part of 2024 Group show – Glucksman, Cork, 2023 Solo show – Kate MacGarry, London, 2023 Group show – Migros, Zurich and 2023 Group show – RAMM, Exeter.
BECOMING PLANT, 2022 (video, trailer)
Becoming Plant follows six dancers who participate in a therapeutic group experiment with psychedelics, while temporarily ‘living’ together on the demilitarised industrial site. While they are subjected to the plant’s consciousness and to each other’s presence, they perform a choreography, aligning their naked bodies with each other and with the architectural ruins. The film serves as a catalyst to discuss wider social and relational issues such as science, spirituality, psychiatry, healing, healthcare and the problems of collective depression and trauma resulting from living in the age of Late Capitalism.
FILM SCREENINGS (selected): include World Premiere – BFI London Film Festival (2022), Chapter Cardiff (2023), DIM Cinema, Vancouver (2023).
EXHIBITION: 2024 Group show – Cooper Gallery, Dundee, 2023 Arts festival – Wonderfruit, Thailand and 2022 Group show – Argos, Brussels.
THE TEMPLE, 2021–2024
Mixed, variable. First commissioned by Nottingham Contemporary in 2021, Ndiritu designed a modernist display structure called The Temple, which displayed her work and loans of other artists. Inspired by indigenous traditional architecture, The Temple was a circular structure conceived as a meditative sanctuary and new form of museum display which could also be the place for public events including Ndiritu’s shamanic performance Labour: Birth of a New Museum.
Presented as part of 2024 – Group show – Lyon Biennale, 2024 – Solo show – SMAK Ghent and 2021 – Trio show – Nottingham Contemporary.
