"The Weight of Remembering" is an installation featuring a sleek wooden structure housing a series of monochromatic, stacked blocks that resemble pages, creating a sense of depth and continuity. This piece conveys themes of memory and history, inviting contemplation on what is recorded and what remains hidden. The style utilizes minimalism to underscore the weight of the content suggested by the text amidst the physicality of the material. Divine Southgate-Smith’s work reflects on representation and identity, exploring how stories of Black, queer, and female bodies are told or obscured within societal narratives. ...
British multidisciplinary artist Divine Southgate-Smith works across a wide breadth of media, incorporating installation, performance, sound, sculpture, text, film, spoken word, furniture design, and 3D rendering into her practice. Her work serves as a route through which to examine and rework representations of Black, queer, and female bodies and their experiences. In her hypothetical spaces, her subject matter is recontextualised and decontextualised, hidden and revealed, given a voice, or silenced. Southgate-Smith invites us to take the time to consider the power dynamics at play within visual media and how oppression and empowerment, and social and political standing interrelate. When approaching art production, she is not restrained by media specificity; she weaves disciplines together to provide a framework for articulating complex narratives. Southgate-Smith’s practice is heavily grounded in research, drawing inspiration from literature, archives, intersectionality, and music as her starting points. Her diverse range of media allows her to explore these themes in depth, utilising each form to add layers of meaning to her work. ...
NıCOLETTı is a London-based gallery committed to supporting the development of emerging artists. Founded in 2018 as an itinerant curatorial project, the gallery opened its first permanent space in 2019.
NıCOLETTı’s programme focuses on researching and supporting emerging artists in the realization of institutional projects and museum presentations. Many of the artists represented by the gallery have held their first UK solo exhibition at NıCOLETTı and have subsequently exhibited in prominent international institutions and biennials. The gallery presents a diverse range of conceptually-driven practices, with a particular emphasis on how aesthetics can offer new perspectives on pressing socio-political issues. ...
