“Sudan is beauty,” I overheard someone say… And I understand why.
Alma’s Art Foundation is a gallery that feels open and inviting, its large glass windows drawing both sunlight and passers-by into the space. Currently occupying the gallery is Of Roots and Routes, curated by Frédérique Cifuentes, which brings together a rich and varied collection of work from female Sudanese artists, writes Leo Dunlop.
Although many of the works inevitably speak to Sudanese identity and the political reality currently facing Sudan (with more than 14 million people displaced) what emerges is not a singular story but an incredibly diverse body of work. The exhibition resists flattening Sudanese experience into one narrative.
Fayrouz Omer’s multidisciplinary pieces feel deeply tied to memory, identity and fragments of personal history. In Köpfe (“Heads”), textile figures hang across the wall, each carrying its own distinct colours, shapes and personality. Each fold and crease of material brings to life new characters that allow the artist and viewer to confront and converse with Sudan’s past, present and future.
That same sense of memory and materiality runs throughout the exhibition. Raised in Sudan, Stefania Indelicato creates jewellery that resemble unearthed artefacts or treasured found objects, pieces that glint and shimmer, illuminating the artist’s Sudanese identity.
Omeima Mudawi-Rowlings MBE works weave language and image directly into fabric, breathing life into the textiles that carry the weight of her experiences as both a deaf artist and a Sudanese woman.
Elsewhere, Aisha Hussein Shariffe’s paintings drift across the canvas in fluid movements of colour and abstraction. The longer you stay with them, the more the works begin to shift and transform, as though images are constantly emerging from and disappearing back into memory itself.
The exhibition allows viewers to encounter different textures, mediums and experiences of Sudanese culture while opening up stories that often go unheard and untold within the UK.
Who would have expected that, tucked away down a quiet side street in Southwark, you could encounter something that feels so alive with Sudanese identity? I left feeling nourished by the experience and grateful for the introduction to so many artists and perspectives I may otherwise never have encountered.
Of Roots and Routes runs until 18 July and is free and open to all.
Almas Art Foundation, Arch 28, Old Union Yard Arches, 229 Union Street, London, SE1 0LR.
