Untitled (Lash. Linger. Load/Nkisi) A string of words—part spell, part summons. These nkisi are not passive; they watch, listen, wait. Recast through a diasporic lens, they draw on Kongo practice as vessels of power, protection, and justice. Nails once marked pacts, pleas, punishments—mediating between worlds.

Made under the guidance of Vienna-based multidisciplinary artist and performer Masimba Hwati, the figures are crafted in ceramic—earth, water, fire, and air—and are fragile yet enduring. The shift from wood to clay speaks to African technologies and spiritualities that adapt, resist, persist. Each nail also points to the more than eight hundred African children abducted by the priests Niccolò Olivieri and Biagio Verri in the 19th century. Mirrors fracture presence and absence, multiplying witnesses. The installation holds return and rupture at once: a field of guardians and avengers, where memory refuses burial.

Untitled (Lash. Linger. Load/Nkisi) A string of words—part spell, part summons. These nkisi are not passive; they watch, listen, wait. Recast through a diasporic lens, they draw on Kongo practice as vessels of power, protection, and justice. Nails once marked pacts, pleas, punishments—mediating between worlds.

Made under the guidance of Vienna-based multidisciplinary artist and performer Masimba Hwati, the figures are crafted in ceramic—earth, water, fire, and air—and are fragile yet enduring. The shift from wood to clay speaks to African technologies and spiritualities that adapt, resist, persist. Each nail also points to the more than eight hundred African children abducted by the priests Niccolò Olivieri and Biagio Verri in the 19th century. Mirrors fracture presence and absence, multiplying witnesses. The installation holds return and rupture at once: a field of guardians and avengers, where memory refuses burial.