Event Details

The Ruth Davis Design Gallery hosts the exhibition Whirling Return of the Ancestors, a dynamic, multi-sensorial exhibition of sights, sounds, motions … and emotions. The exhibition presents the rich and varied artistry of Egúngún masquerades and other arts inspired by a tradition that honours and celebrates the power and eternal presence of ancestors among Yorùbá peoples of West Africa. This connection between the living and the departed is expressed in a Yorùbá saying: “The world is a marketplace [we visit], the otherworld is home.” (Ayé l’ọjà, ọ̀run n’ilé). Gallery visitors will encounter two dazzling Egúngún ensembles that create a “breeze of blessing” when they whirl in performance. The exhibition also includes two historic Egúngún ensembles from the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection, cloth and carved wooden headdresses, and carved memorial figures representing departed sacred twins. Several works are on loan from the Chazen Museum of Art and private collectors. Powerful contemporary traditions are represented through photographs by Phyllis Galembo, textile works by Agbo Folarin and Koffi Gahou, a painting by Wole Lagunju, and a painted ensemble in motion by Moyo Okediji. The gallery is filled with sights, sounds, and motions in a documentary film of the annual Egúngún festival in Porto Novo, Republic of Benin, and Ọ̀yọ́tunji Village, South Carolina.