ILE OMI: HOUSE OF WATER
Ile Omi: House of Water is a large scale, multi-channel immersive video installation. It is inspired by intersectional African Diasporic culture, West African culture and chronophysics, the field of physics that specifically deals with the concept of time and time travel. It showcases a thriving underwater community throughout various times. The imagined people are the descendants of the African souls lost during transatlantic slave voyages. The installation transports visitors to a futuristic world where these descendants have adapted to an underwater lifestyle and formed a thriving, communal society.
The video installation creates an immersive underwater environment filled with vibrant colors, textures, and sounds. The work contains a blend of iconography and images inspired by various traditional West African religions and Yoruba customs and imaginings of what a future derived from this experience would look, sound and feel like. Visitors are invited to explore this underwater world and to witness the communities rich cultural traditions, innovative technologies, and harmonious relationships with the surrounding marine ecosystem.
The project uses a combination of archival photography, AI-generated photographs, combined with a custom score to create an alternate reality where visitors can explore alternative histories and futures that were previously deemed impossible. By presenting this alternate reality, the installation invites visitors to re-imagine the potential of humanity and to question the limitations imposed by history and circumstance.