Rites of Passage

Curated by Péjú Oshin
Gagosian, Britannia Street, London | 2023

Curated by Péjú Oshin, Rites of Passage features work by nineteen contemporary artists who share histories of migration, identity formation, and belonging. The exhibition takes its title and framework from anthropologist Arnold van Gennep’s seminal 1909 study of liminal rituals that mark life’s key transitions—birth, puberty, marriage, and death.

Exploring these thresholds as both metaphor and lived experience, Oshin reinterprets van Gennep’s concept of “liminal space” to examine the physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions of transformation. Through painting, sculpture, video, performance, and installation, the artists navigate the in-between—spaces of displacement, adaptation, and return—reflecting on the layered realities of postcolonial life and the enduring search for home.

Structured around the three stages of liminality—separation, transition, and return—the exhibition interrogates not only personal metamorphosis but also collective experience and cultural continuity. The works engage with the “triple consciousness” experienced by members of the African diaspora as they move between histories, geographies, and cultural frameworks.

Rites of Passage includes works by:
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Àsìkò, Phoebe Boswell, Adelaide Damoah, Femi Dawkins, Victor Ehikhamenor, Mary Evans, Ayesha Feisal, Enam Gbewonyo, Elsa James, Julianknxx, Sahara Longe, Manyaku Mashilo, Emily Moore, Nengi Omuku, Patrick Quarm, Alexandria Smith, Sharon Walters, and Michaela Yearwood-Dan.