Divine Southgate-Smith

Episode 7Divine Southgate-Smith
Series

Fractured self

Imagine yourself as a mosaic—each shard a memory, each fragment a story. Identity is fragmented, nonlinear, imperfect. Through collage, artists reassemble past and present into visual diaries, embracing the messiness of memory to reveal a self that is ever-evolving, resilient, and beautifully incomplete.

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Episode 7 of 14

Divine Southgate-Smith

In this episode, we enter the shape-shifting world of Divine Southgate-Smith — a London-based artist whose work weaves together photography, performance, video, and sculpture to reimagine Black, queer, and feminine identities. Through speculative archives and ritualized storytelling, Southgate-Smith blurs past, present, and future, inviting us to see identity not as fixed, but as fluid, powerful, and always becoming.

 

Episode

Explore the artist's work, stories, and experiences tied to this episode's theme.

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Fold
Divine Southgate-SmithFold, 2024
180 x 142 x 0.8cm
Twerk
Divine Southgate-SmithTwerk, 2024
180 x 142 x 0.8cm
They come to me and sing so beautifully
MELA-9 Series: Past is Mourning
Quasar
Divine Southgate-SmithQuasar, 2024
200 x 40 x 5cm
Limbo
Divine Southgate-SmithLimbo, 2023
53 x 61cm
In the service of our gifts
Divine Southgate-SmithIn the service of our gifts, 2024
4.5 x 28 x 12cm
The Weight of Remembering
Divine Southgate-SmithThe Weight of Remembering, 2025
25 x 32 x 150cm
Featured Artist

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Divine Southgate-Smith
Artist
Divine Southgate-Smith
B.1995, Togolese

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. ...

More Works By: Divine Southgate-Smith

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Mie Yim
Series: Fractured selfEpisode 8
Mie Yim

Painting the psychological landscape of diasporic memory and transformation.

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