First Thursday Late Opening

About

Celebrate First Thursday at the Nunnery Gallery with Traces of the Future, which showcases new work from Evgenia Arbugaeva and Mariele Neudecker, with original objects and materials collected during historical-anthropological research at Amani Hill Research Station, Tanzania. The exhibition tour, led by the Gallery Co-Director and beginning at 7.30pm, will help audiences delve into the history, hopes and dreams that lie behind this original exhibition, guided by the intriguing images and objects on display.

The Amani – meaning peace in Kiswahili – Hill Research Station lies deep in a Tanzanian rainforest, suspended as a capsule of dreams high on a mountain range. We invite audiences to explore this intriguing and beautiful place, through Russian photographer Evgenia Arbugaeva’s 12 celebrated photographs – as featured in December 2016’s National Geographic – together with 11 new photo works and three new films from renowned multi-media artist Mariele Neudecker, all made on a residency in Amani.

The exhibition follows the anthropological and historical research project ‘Memorials and remains of medical science in Africa’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), that through artist residencies and re-enactment explored new and exciting cross-overs between anthropology and art. One of the biggest of its kind in Africa, the Amani station was built in the late nineteenth-century and has hosted researchers from all over the world across its originally colonial history. Held in an intriguing state of both use and preservation, some of the site exists exactly as it was in the 1970s; the objects of which reveal the stories and aspirations behind the people and the science that was pioneered here. A selection of objects will surround the artwork, from original specimens – bottled snakes, butterflies and flies – to maps and experimental equipment, inviting you to explore and meditate on these objects that draw lines into our own past, our understanding of the present world, and its future.

Curated by Greer Crawley with support from Buckinghamshire New University and with special thanks to Prof. Wenzel Paul Geissler (University of Oslo), National Institute for Medical Research, Amani Medical Research Centre and the Booth Museum of Natural History.