Sonia Elizabeth Barrett, Desk No.6, 2021. Lockable Antique Portable Travel Desk, Mahogany, with embossed leather inlay, wicker, ink and key. 100 x 60 cm
Messums London is proud to present The Ground Beneath: Material Memory and the Resilience of Hope, featuring artists Temitope Adebowale, Motunrayo Akinola, Sonia Elizabeth Barrett, Shirley Nette Williams, Irvin Pascal, Camille Provost, and Justin Randolph Thompson. All of the artists are of Black and African diasporic heritage and work across sculpture, installation, painting, and performance. Together, they explore how ordinary, often discarded materials can carry emotional, cultural, and political weight – and how processes of transformation offer pathways toward regeneration and repair.
Opening 8 October 2025 and coinciding with Frieze Week (15–19 October), the exhibition inaugurates the curatorial vision of Associate Director Lisa Anderson and marks an evolution of direction for Messums London’s emerging art programme, one shaped by material experimentation, cultural memory, and a globally attuned perspective.
The show builds on Messums’ commitment to socially engaged art, foregrounding work that addresses urgent cultural questions, challenges inequities, and fosters meaningful connections between artists, materials, and audiences.
Through instinctive and culturally rooted approaches, the artists reclaim and rework materials such as cardboard, wood, hemp, ceramic tile, shoe polish, and natural fibres – substances often overlooked or dismissed after prior use. A discarded object becomes a point of connection; a fragment becomes a site of inquiry; a humble substance becomes a tool for resistance.
Foregrounding acts of repair, regeneration, and hope, The Ground Beneath positions the creative process – especially when layered, embodied, and labour-intensive – as a potent force for both personal and collective transformation. Here, reclamation is not about scarcity but about cultural respect: an instinctive appreciation for the abundance found in the everyday.
Opening Hours
Sunday - Monday: 10:00am - 4:00pm,
Tuesday and Wednesday: Closed
Thursday - Saturday: 10:00am - 5:00pm
Location:
28 Cork Street, London,
W1S 3NG