Yinka Shonibare

SAFIOTRA [HYBRIDITÉS/HYBRIDITIES]

The Malagasy word “safiotra” conveys the idea of hybridization—a fusion of two elements or identities that create a new entity while preserving their distinct characteristics. When applied to humans, it denotes a person of mixed heritage who integrates elements of both origins without being confined to either. This concept extends to objects, ideas, or concepts born from the convergence of contrasting realities.

Hybridity is at the heart of Yinka Shonibare’s work, which explores the intersections between cultures, identities, geographies and colonial histories. Born in London and raised in Nigeria, Shonibare embodies and questions hybridity in his work, blending Western and African visual and historical references. This duality, rooted in his personal experience, translates into artworks that question the place of the individual in a globalized world where cultures interpenetrate, but tensions persist.

The use of wax fabrics, emblematic of his work, particularly illustrates this hybridization. These fabrics, the fruit o fa complex journey between Indonesia, their country of origin, Europe, where they have been widely produced for decades, and Africa, where they are mainly consumed, reflect complex cultural, historical and economic exchanges.

Shonibare also recontextualizes key moments in Western history, as in the Decolonised Structures series (2022–2023), by incorporating non-Western symbolic elements, underlining the interdependence between Europe and the colonies. His baroque, contemporary aesthetic blends styles and eras to reveal the richness of composite identities.

Through his work, Shonibare makes hybridity a space for dialogue between cultures, dissolving traditional oppositions (West/East, past/present, local/global) to celebrate métissage as a source of creativity and reflection on our contemporary world.

The Safiotra [Hybridités/Hybridities] exhibition features three works by Yinka Shonibare from the Fondation  H collection, namely The African Library (2018), Refugee Astronaut X (2024) and African Bird Magic (Mauritius Fody & Comoro Blue Vanga) (2024), as well as some twenty of his works from 2011 to 2024.

The African Library: a major work in the Safiotra exhibition

The African Library (2018) is one of Yinka Shonibare’s most striking installations to date. The work is part of a global project that so far includes four libraries. Produced over a number of years, the series deals with the construction and writing of the history of three continents: The British Library (2014), now in the permanent collection of the Tate Museum, The American Library (2018) held by the Rennie Collection, The African Library (2018), now in the Fondation  H collection and The War Library (2024), presented in the artist’s monographic exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 2024.

The African Library consists of six thousand books wrapped in Dutch wax cloth and embossed with the names of personalities who shaped African history in the post-colonial period. The library brings together the various figures who made a significant contribution to the struggles for independence of the European colonies in Africa. It pays particular attention to the role of women and European allies who supported the struggle for African emancipation. It also features famous Africans in fields such as literature, science, sport, music and art.

The installation is complemented by a digital system enabling the public to access historical and biographical resources on these personalities via a website featuring the biographies of 6,000 personalities. As part of the acquisition of this major work, Fondation H undertook a process of enriching this corpus, translating all the English language entries into French, as well as some into Malagasy. The website has also been redesigned by Fondation H, to make it easier to explore the resources offered, by geographical, thematic and alphabetical entry, in order to make this work accessible to the vast, mainly Malagasy, audience of Fondation H.

A selection of works from the Fondation H collection in dialogue with Yinka Shonibare’s works

Invited for a carte blanche titled Safiotra [Hybridités/Hybridities], artist Yinka Shonibare offers an interpretation of the Fondation H collection in dialogue with his monographic exhibition. His selection brings together 19 African and Afro-descendant artists from his generation and the one that follows. Through a diversity of mediums—painting, sculpture, installation, and textile arts—these artists deconstruct notions of fixed identity, challenging the idea of purity/authenticity, and instead propose a fluid, hybrid, and ever-evolving vision of the world. Their practices explore the intersections between traditional craftsmanship and radically contemporary creation, the invocation of memory and the transformations of the modern world, as well as materiality and conceptual approaches.

The exhibition highlights the importance of materiality in contemporary art on the African continent, where materials become vectors of memory, writing, claim and resistance. Each work bears witness to an interconnection between the history of materials, their origin, their transformation and the narratives they carry, thus questioning notions of heritage, sustainability and globalization. This exhibition invites the public on an aesthetic and intellectual journey, where each work becomes a bridge between past and future, between the earth’s resources and human aspirations, while questioning our own relationships to materials and their global implications.

Exhibited artists

Kelani Abass (Nigeria), Malika Agueznay (Morocco), Amina Agueznay (Morocco), El Anatsui (Ghana), Omar Ba (Senegal), Leilah Babirye (Uganda), Virginia Chihota (Zimbabwe), Sokey Edorh (Togo), Dan Halter (South Africa), Jems Koko Bi (Côte d’Ivoire), Abdoulaye Konate (Mali), Ibrahim Mahama (Ghana), Zanele Muholi (South Africa), Moataz Nasr (Egypt), Zoarinivo Razakaratrimo (Madagascar), Moffat Takadiwa (Zimbabwe), Temandrota (Madagascar), Ouattara Watts (Côte d’Ivoire) Billie Zangewa (Malawi).

YINKA SHONIBARE'S BIOGRAPHY

Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (b. 1962) in London, UK, studied Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art, London (1989) and received his MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London (1991).

His interdisciplinary practice uses citations of Western art history and literature to question the validity of contemporary cultural and national identities within the context of globalisation. Through examining race, class and the construction of cultural identity, his works comment on the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe, and their respective economic and political histories.

In 2004, he was nominated for the Turner Prize and in 2008, his mid-career survey began at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, travelling in 2009 to the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. In 2010, his first public art commission ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ was displayed on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London and is in the permanent collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

In 2013, he was elected a Royal Academician and was awarded the honour of ‘Commander of the Order of the British Empire’ in 2019.His installation ‘The British Library’ was acquired by Tate in 2019 and is currently on display at Tate Modern, London.

Shonibare was awarded the prestigious Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon Award in 2021. A major retrospective of his work opened at the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg in the same year followed by his co-ordination of The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London which opened in September 2021.

The survey solo exhibition, Yinka Shonibare CBE: Planets in My Head, opened in April 2022 at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan followed by the unveiling in June 2022 of a major new sculptural work, Wind Sculpture in Bronze I at Royal Djurgården, Stockholm.

In November 2022, Shonibare hosted the international launch of Guest Artists Space (G. A. S.) Foundation, a non-profit founded and developed by the artist. The Foundation is dedicated to facilitating cultural exchange through residencies, public programmes and exhibition opportunities for creative practitioners from around the world. The live/work residency spaces are set across sites in Lagos and a rural working farm in Ijebu, Ogun State.

To mark Sharjah Biennial's 30th anniversary in February2023, Shonibare was commissioned to create a series of new works for the exhibition. He also unveiled a new outdoor sculpture commissioned by the David Oluwale Memorial Association in Aire Park, Leeds as part of Leeds 2023.

In 2024, the Serpentine, London UK, presented a solo exhibition of works in their Serpentine South gallery titled Suspended States. Shonibare's work is also featured at the Venice Biennale 2024 as part of the Nigerian Pavilion, in the group show: Nigeria Imaginary.

Shonibare’s works are in notable museum collections internationally, including the Tate Collection, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and VandenBroek Foundation, The Netherlands.