Threads of Africa: Online Exhibition on Artsy

Coinciding with the opening of Igshaan Adams’s installation "Lulu, Zanele, Zandile, Savannah" at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami on December 2, 2025; and in parallel to his ongoing solo exhibition at the Hill Foundation in New York, this carefully selected grouping from the Africa First collection brings to the fore the prominence of thread in contemporary African art.

“I am interested in old objects, and I find that used items resonate with history,” says El Anatsui, the renowned Ghanaian sculptor whose hanging bottle-cap works have imbued contemporary African art with a vocabulary and a tradition that many of the artists in this exhibition have embraced, expanded and reimagined.

Nylon, twine, metal, aluminium, plastic, yarn, rubber, waxed thread and silicone are just some of the materials that the participating artists ingeniously use to bind together the vast array of repurposed matter which they find in their surronding markets, workshops, traditional industries and in nature itself. These materials carry the stories of an exploited continent, stories that its artists answer with vigor, poetry and often sharp humor.

Adams’ practice, for example, "draws on collective weaving, ornamental motifs from hybrid traditions, traditional beading, and the revaluation of mundane materials. His luminous tapestries are woven from chromatically intense, contrasting threads that can evoke aerial views of a landscape. Brimming with visual and material incident, they incorporate chains, lace, fringe and dense constellations of beads that catch and scatter light across their shimmering surfaces", as writer Gean Moreno (ICA Miami) has observed.

We invite you to explore the multiplicity of fabrics, fibers and textiles that come together here to form thoughtful, beautiful works. Pieces that share a lineage of material history and tradition, and that speak to the ever-growing global appreciation of African art.
Click to see the Exhibition on Artsy