Dono: Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom and Harun Morrison

19 Jul-20 Oct 2024

Overview

Presenting new work by Somerset House Studios resident artists Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom and Harun Morrison.

Taking its title from an Akan Adinkra symbol and name for a double skin talking drum, Dono expands on the artists’ shared interest in sound, exploring untranslatable and non-linguistic forms as tools of meaning-making. A collaboration initiated by curator Jareh Das, and developed in dialogue with one another, the artists make interventions that loosen and contest the confines of language.

Drawing out the communicative potential of percussive instrumentation and interior architecture, Boakye-Yiadom and Morrison explore how bodies interact with and relate to one another, their surroundings and the designed environment. The exhibition further interrogates the legacies of colonial and carceral enclosure and architecture and their relation to the surveillance, documentation and regulation of bodies.

Dono will be the latest work in the G31 project space, a space dedicated to the work of Somerset House Studios and its residency programmes – at all stages of development. G31 affords the opportunity to ‘look behind the curtain’ and to interact with the risk-taking work being made within the building. Open year round, G31 hosts a programme of installations and activities, many of which are free, as part of the wider Somerset House Studios programme.