Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to present Thus masked, the world has a language, a group exhibition exploring the masquerade and mask traditions across the African diasporas in Mexico, the Caribbean, and the United States. Across the exhibition, masks are activated forms—a vessel through which truths can be expressed, history can be questioned, and memory can be reactivated. The exhibition will feature works by gallery artists Raphaël Barontini and Lorraine O’Grady, alongside invited artists Nick Cave, Ebony G. Patterson, Darryl Richardson, and Tavares Strachan.
Through lens-based practices, collage, and sculpture, the artists engage the performative, political, and intergenerational dimensions of masks that bridge geographies and social histories. As a threshold between the visible and the invisible, the archival and the contemporary, African diasporic masquerades are rituals that summon the essence of nature, from the bush and swamp to animals, spirits, foreigners, witches, the past itself, or ancestors —to allow spiritual presence to be embodied for communal and social transformation.
