About this Event
Lost Songs of the Middle Passage is an act of remembrance — a visual and spiritual reckoning with the untold histories of the Atlantic slave trade by Àsìkò. Curated by Femi Odunlami, founder of Art.Africa, this thoughtfully-conceived exhibition begins in the silence of the ocean — a silence heavy with the memory of millions of African lives lost during the Middle Passage. Thrown overboard, drowned in despair, or buried within the suffocating holds of slave ships, their voices were silenced before they could echo across generations.
This work asks: what remains of those voices, and how do we hear them now?
Through layered imagery, archival fragments, and spectral presences, Lost Songs imagines the spiritual journey of those who perished. Their souls do not vanish — they gather beneath the waves, drawn toward ancestral memory, toward Africa, toward a cosmic Baobab that transforms absence into presence.
This body of work resists history’s erasure, merging fact with the mythic. Ship diagrams, voyage records, and first-person accounts are intertwined with surreal visual language — transforming the ocean into both grave and portal. It is not only a mourning, but a reckoning: an attempt to give form to the ungrievable, to restore dignity where it was stolen.
The “lost songs” themselves cannot be written, nor fully known. They emerge here as whispers, as textures, as resonant silences — inviting the viewer to stand at the threshold between history and imagination, to listen for the songs that were interrupted, and to carry them forward as living memory.
Timeline of the Reflection & Dialogue
6:30 PM – Doors Open / Drinks Reception
7:00 PM – Film Screening (30 mins)
7:30 PM – Artist Interview + Audience Q&A (15 mins)
Exploring the creative process, inspiration behind the work, and the artistic interpretation of historical memory.
7:45 PM – Break (15 mins)
8:00 PM – Panel Discussion + Audience Q&A (45 mins)
8:45 PM – Closing Remarks
9:00 PM – Event Closes
Join us for two evenings of remembrance, dialogue, and discovery — where history meets imagination, and silence becomes song.
About the Artist
Àsìkò is a London-based Nigerian visual artist whose practice blends photography, mixed media, and storytelling to explore identity, memory, and transformation. His work frequently examines the intersection between history and spirituality, creating deeply emotional visual narratives rooted in African cosmology.
About Art.Africa
Art.Africa is a cultural platform dedicated to promoting African, Caribbean, and diaspora artists, fostering dialogue between history, contemporary art, and global audiences. Through exhibitions, education, and storytelling, Art.Africa seeks to preserve and honour African creativity in its various forms.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
art'otel London Hoxton, Powered by Radisson Hotels, 1-3 Rivington Street, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
