this my whole hole whole hole this still little me me me
Funto Omojola

GALLERY II

May 25 – June 23, 2024

Opening reception: Saturday, May 25, from 6–8pm

A.I.R Gallery is pleased to announce this my whole hole whole hole this still little me me me, a multimedia exhibition by 2023–2024 Fellow Funto Omojola. In the exhibition, photographic portraits are collected alongside bodily artifacts, like the artist’s hair, to create a reliquary for a pillaged body. Black-and-white self-portraits, in which the artist often appears blurred and distorted, are shown alongside photo album-sized images of the artist’s family in their home space. Informed both by Yoruba understandings of illness as well as violent, colonial medical understandings of disease, Omojola considers what is left after a marked body has been despoiled or wounded, as well as what emerges when their family’s histories of ailment and indisposition are processed through Western belief systems, and arrive at Western institutions as artifacts framed for intimate review and revisit. 

Body no be firewood:

oh lovely beautiful body, You!

A vessel, my soul, spirit, torture belonging 

Tender but ruggedly commending

Oh lovely beautiful body, you!

Cherished, nourished, fighting, commotion

Every part of you spoke without confusion 

Now, we all know the victory you emitted to conquer.

Discombobulated but not destroyed.

Tiny little stitches woven together like ‘‘aso oke’’

to put you together again lovely body, You!

Painful memories,Yet scares are reminders

Now is the time to unwind beautiful body you!

all bodies deserve to maintain a meaningful purpose of life.

Thanks, to the creator of my beautiful body you!

 — Abimbola Omojola, the artist’s mother

Body no be wood

Ara n fé̩̩simi

The slogan of the body

Ara líle ni ìpìnlè̩ o̩rò̩

The mandate of its goodness

Kátàkárà, káràkátà

Kára kó lekoko

The ups and downs

The downs and ups

Healthy it must be.

Ani, oun ni ìpìnlè̩ o̩rò̩

Health, they say is wealth

E̩ni ba kan lo mo

Wait not until it weakens

Wait not until it weakens

The ups and downs

The downs and ups

Àláfíà ara

The body as the harbinger of wealth

Òun ni ìpìnlè̩ o̩rò̩

Ká sin gbé̩̩ré̩̩, abé̩̩ré̩̩ ilu òkèèrè

The doctor’s tool, or the Babalawo’s needle

Irin is̩é̩̩ Òyìnbó,

Irin is̩é̩̩ ilè̩ Òòduà

Deutsche chirurgische instrumente,

Or the Odùduwà libation

Kátàkárà, káràkátà

Kára kó le koko

The ups and downs

The downs and ups

Aisan mabara je

Disease, not my portion

Ara n fesimi

The slogan of the body

Ara lile ni igbile oro

The mandate of its goodness

Kátàkárà, káràkátà

Kára kó lekoko

 — Olabode Omojola, the artist’s father

Funto Omojola (b. 1996 Ilorin, Nigeria) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Omojola has done projects with Dia Chelsea, New York; Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, among others. Their work has been supported by MacDowell, Peterborough; Cave Canem Foundation, Brooklyn; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; Millay Arts, Austerlitz; and the Poetry Project, New York. 

View the Press Release here.

View Funto Omojola’s page here.

Public Program:

Participatory Art Project: Prayer Room

Ongoing

Photography: Matthew Sherman