Candice Nembhard and Orphée Kashala in Conversation, Epiphany (Temporaire) at Ikon Gallery

On Saturday 20 April 2024, as part of the exhibition tour of Epiphany (Temporaire) to Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, curators Orphée Kashala and Candice Nembhard held open and critical conversation about curating exhibitions and other creative projects. This exchange offered insight into Kashala and Nembhard’s individual approaches to curatorship, with reflections on recent projects in Birmingham and elsewhere. Through this conversation, Kashala and Nembhard sought to expand understanding around and demystify the role of the curator.

They reflected on the many possible relationships between curatorial and artistic practice. They shed light on the realities of working as freelance curators and their experiences of working with institutions, as well as the significance of collaborating with artists and other creative practitioners. This conversation provided an opportunity for Kashala and Nembhard to reflect on the factors that can help or hinder free, creative curatorial expression, such as the value of being part of a network of peers, the effectiveness of curatorial fellowships, and the precarity of working independently.

Epiphany (Temporaire) was toured to Ikon Gallery between 9 February and 21 April 2024. The exhibition was first presented as part of ICF’s residency at Block 336 in Brixton (26 August – 17 September 2023) and was commissioned by Ort Gallery and ICF as part of our Emergence(y) project.

Exodus Crooks’ work for this exhibition includes sculpture, film, text, and sculptural installation. They are invested in a process of carving out (sometimes literally) dialogues and bringing thoughts to the surface, from the layers of history, heritage and culture around them. In this interrogation of domestic and familiar surfaces, Exodus is investigating the embodiment and repository of memories, histories and traditions, inherited, stored and transferred through time and shared space. A succession of profound experiences converge within the exhibition to form an allegory of personal stories of love, loss and pain.

Epiphany (Temporaire) invites us to witness, with reverence, as Exodus takes an inward journey, a slow walk home, a look inside. They place the creative process alongside the process of self-discovery, and search for self through creativity, home through imagination, and heritage through interrogation. In doing so, they reveal that who we are and our imagination are converging parallels, meeting on the horizon, and therefore diverging as we get closer to them. In this body of work, Exodus is deconstructing the idea of a linear self and setting a precedent for a multidimensional exploration of creativity and self-determination.

In developing this exhibition together, Orphée and Exodus have been in regular conversation for 12 months. The show stems from Ort Gallery and ICF’s Emergence(y) project for emerging curators, which Orphée was selected to participate in in 2021. As part of the project, Orphée undertook a residency at Ort Gallery in Birmingham to focus on his curatorial research and development. This residency coincided with Exodus’ DYCP (Develop Your Creative Practice awarded by Arts Council England) research in Jamaica. Together, they explored the themes of epiphany, temporariness, displacement, home, heritage, tradition, imagination, diaspora, creativity, honesty, spirituality, and self-determination.