“Shrine to Knowledge”, Sommerset House London

“Shrine to Knowledge,” a site-specific installation created in 2019 at the London exhibition “Get Up, Stand Up Now,” explores the concept of Afro-futurism. This work served as a “futuristic chamber of memory,” designed to be a meditative space where visitors could be enveloped in a “womb of wisdom” that spans the past, present, and future.The installation bridged the gap between traditional and digital ways of knowing through several key layers:

The Atmospheric Environment: saturated with "coded" symbols, intended to communicate directly with the viewer’s subconscious mind, bypassing the need for literal legibility.

The Physical Presence of History: Amidst these abstract symbols, I’d included physical books on Black history, providing a tangible anchor for the knowledge being shared.

Within this space is a digital parallel, while the concept felt like science fiction, it mirrored our current digital reality—where data flows constantly and invisibly. I envisioned a future where physical books might disappear entirely, replaced by a direct, seamless flow of information.

Ultimately, the project was guided by the idea of an immersive, intuitive data transfer, where the "shrine" acted as a conduit for ancestral and future knowledge to coexist in the present moment.

-Victor Ekpuk

cnn.com