*89

Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop is excited to present *89, the solo residency exhibition by our current artist in residence ubada muti.

ubada muti is about to complete his 89 days of the residency, as graphically depicted in his takeover of our poster design. This artist’s practice defies definition. Each time one grasps hold of a thread to understand an avenue of his explorations a new tide will wash over and another layer will be exposed, eclipsing the previous understanding. Thus is the active and ongoing ‘conversation’ as well as permanent condition of ‘learning’ and questioning. Throughout his time with us, ubada has invited friends, colleagues, former classmates and children to collaborate and work together in the upstairs studio. Space, walls and materials combined with conversation result in each collaboration layering into the last, producing a vast number of many handed works, an accumulation of pieces, evidence of time shared informing, growing and changing. ubada sets a task, a framework, an experiment, a use of time – unpredictable. Yet the choices of material, collaborators as well as the physicality of ways of working are undeniably ubada’s. As an artist confronts the intimidating enormity of choices to express the questions asked, ubada’s choices are profoundly liberating and fluid, yet the body of work consistent and unique to him. A ‘pallet’ of people, time, paint, paper, a grid, a space and many conversations allows him to further understand his question of “what is to share”. The final exhibition will undoubtedly confound and delight, eluding total comprehension, yet the glimpses, windows/fragments are a demonstration that to imagine total understanding is unachievable. This is an artist in constant flux through time. ubada’s experiment of sharing has had an invaluable impact on our organisation, redefining how we think about our Foundation as well as how we approach experiences at Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop. Socrates once said: “I do not think that I know what I do not know.” Socratic wisdom is a sort of humility: it simply means being aware of how little one really knows; how uncertain one’s beliefs are; and how likely it is that many of them may turn out to be mistaken.