Exhibitions — Group
Worlding 2.0 in “Beyond the Sweet and Obvious: African Feminisms Refracted”
Date22 October 2026 – 15 February 2027
LocationIwalewahaus, University of Bayreuth, Wölfelstraße 2, 95444 Bayreuth, Germany
Syowia Kyambi presents Worlding 2.0 at Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth
Syowia Kyambi shows her installation Worlding 2.0 (2024–2026) in the group exhibition Beyond the Sweet and Obvious: African Feminisms Refracted at Iwalewahaus, University of Bayreuth, from Thursday 22 October 2026 to Monday 15 February 2027. The exhibition opens on the evening of her Okwui Enwezor Distinguished Lecture, Worlding: Carrying the Sun on Our Backs.
Worlding 2.0
Ceramic forms hang from sisal ropes strung across a timber frame, joined by feathers, maize tassels and beeswax, while further forms rest on the floor. Sound moves through the space: a soundscape choreography and audio installation by Luisa Geier brings together three recordings from Kyambi’s practice.
Soulskin Lament, Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno and Syowia Kyambi, 2017 (26 min)
Waves: Gorée Island, Dakar, Senegal, 2024 (15 min)
Ode to Wangarĩ Maathai, an excerpt from Kaspale’s Playground, Syowia Kyambi, 2020 (2 min)
The installation shares its ground with the lecture: “worlding” as a gesture of survival, a way of creating real and imagined conditions in which other futures and new ways of relating can emerge.
The exhibition
Curated by Natasha A. Kelly, Beyond the Sweet and Obvious: African Feminisms Refracted takes its cue from Colette Omogbai’s 1965 manifesto Man Loves What Is ‘Sweet’ and Obvious and her call for a “new way of looking”. Arranged in constellations rather than by chronology or geography, it brings artistic positions from the Goethe-Institut’s African Feminisms project together with works and materials from the Iwalewahaus collection and archive and Black diasporic perspectives. It is part of African Feminisms: Refractions, a semester-long programme at Iwalewahaus organised in collaboration with the Goethe-Instituts in Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa.
Exhibition information
Work: Worlding 2.0 (2024–2026), Syowia Kyambi
Materials: Ceramic forms, sisal, feathers, maize tassels, beeswax and sound
Sound: Soundscape choreography and audio installation by Luisa Geier
Exhibition: Beyond the Sweet and Obvious: African Feminisms Refracted, curated by Prof. Dr. Natasha A. Kelly
Opening: Thursday 22 October 2026, 17:30, with a guided tour by curator Natasha A. Kelly and participating artists
Dates: Thursday 22 October 2026 – Monday 15 February 2027
Opening hours: Tuesday to Thursday, 12:00–16:00
Admission: Free
Guided tours: 5 November, 26 November (with the curator, in German), 9 December 2026 and 12 January 2027, 18:00–18:45. Further tours by arrangement.
Venue: Iwalewahaus, University of Bayreuth, Wölfelstraße 2, 95444 Bayreuth, Germany
Access: Step-free entrance through the courtyard, reached from Münzgasse
Curatorial Note
African feminisms offer a new perspective on the Iwalewahaus collection and its history. This approach challenges familiar categories, brings previously overlooked perspectives into view, and creates new connections between art, memory, and knowledge. In doing so, it also transforms our understanding of what a collection can be: a living space for research, exchange, and the collaborative production of knowledge.
Natasha A. Kelly
Syowia Kyambi, Worlding 2.0, 2024–2026. Ceramic forms, sisal, feathers, maize tassels, beeswax and sound. Installation view.
© Syowia Kyambi