Efie Gallery is pleased to announce time heals, just not quick enough… curated by Ose Ekore featuring time heals, just not quick enough…works by contemporary artists across generations— Samuel Fosso (b. 1962), Aïda Muluneh (b. 1974), Kelani Abass (b. 1978), Abeer Sultan (b. 1999) and Sumayah Fallatah (b. 2000).
The second exhibition to take place in Efie Gallery’s new Alserkal Avenue location, this group show of film and photography offers powerful visual narratives that encourage reflection on healing, growth and understanding through the passage of time. Sumayah Fallatah’s work weaves personal and family narratives with broader themes of race, migration and the African diaspora in the Arab world. In I became you, so I lost myself (2024), she layers family photographs, archival images, indigo-dyed textiles and red thread to reflect on the emotional toll of cultural assimilation and the grief of migration. Her video Fruits of Meditation (2023) revisits a childhood memory of her father’s meditative ritual—reciting fruit names while making squeezing motions—captured through two parallel videos: one of her father selecting fruit in deep meditation and the other of Fallatah attempting to understand his practice.
Abeer Sultan’s Agua Viva explores marine life through personal history, inspired by her family’s migration from West Africa to Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. Using self-portraiture, she constructs a new cosmography, intertwining hidden geographies and overlooked histories. Through collages, photography and movin
images of jellyfish, corals, and shells, Sultan creates fictional artifacts and lost data, shaping a new mythology for future generations of the African diaspora in the Arab Peninsula.
Kelani Abass merges history, memory, and technology, drawing influence from his father’s letterpress printing company. His mixed-media works layer photography, text and found objects, blending mechanical processes with traditional painting techniques to explore time’s passage and identity’s
fluidity.
Samuel Fosso challenges identity and representation through experimental self-portraits embodying various personas. On view are 20 works from his 70’s Lifestyle series (1974 – 1978). The artist’s first exposure to photography outside the Central African Republic came through magazine images brought
by visiting American Peace Corps volunteers. Captivated by the fashion and style of African Americans and West African music icon Prince Nico Mbarga—he sought to channel both influences through stylised self-portraits in his studio.
Aïda Muluneh’s photographs subvert conventional representations of African women through a bold, signature visual language rooted in surrealism and Ethiopian cultural motifs. Her striking compositions, often rendered in vivid primary colours, employ face painting, masks, and ceremonial garments to explore the intersection of personal and political narratives. By merging symbolic aesthetics with arresting directness, Muluneh reframes narratives of womanhood, and asserts photography as a powerful tool in eshaping Africa’s global image.
Ose Ekore comments:
“In an era shaped by urgency, time heals, just not quick enough… invites viewers to slow down and reconsider their relationship with time. The curatorial direction emerged organically, guided by the themes the participating artists have been thoughtfully exploring in their practices.”
Press release from Efie Gallery
Image: Sumayah Fallatah. I became you, so I lost myself. 2024. Detail. Image courtesy of the artist
