“The spirit of human individuality is visual, oral, and musical rather than written – it can't stay still; it's constantly in motion.”
The notion of what constitutes our surroundings through time has changed, and so has that of the self. “óré ì sé agbòn” (the land that extended to the visible world) questions contemporary discourse on spirituality by breaking and transforming the rules and expectations of the relationship between space, body, mind, and spirit through the lens of time: past, present, and future.
This installation invokes the essence of the guardian spirit — Djinn in Arabic or your ‘Èhì’ in Èdó. Although generally invisible, Djinns are supposed to be composed of thin and subtle bodies (ad̲j̲sām); they can change at will. In Èdó, your ‘Èhì’ is defined as your genius or destiny. There is not one of us who does not have a Djinn or ‘Èhì’ appointed as our constant companion. Situated in the centre of the installation is ‘Àrò-òtó’ (the shrine of the ground), home to these spirits.
This ritual work is manifested through Ogisi’s ethos of highlighting borderless ideologies via materiality. As such, walking through the installation, the viewer's body becomes a spiritual landscape — an energy field designed, constantly reworked, and reactivated.
Bubu Ogisi invites viewers to examine how space interacts with the spirit and vice versa. The exhibit demonstrates the infinite iterations of materiality, reformulating what spirits represent through material means. By making humanity transient, she reminds us that all of us are ritual space — the spirits see all sides of a person.
