Sustaining The Otherwise

Truly looking forward to my time in Lusaka, Zambia as an artist in residence at @lusaka_contemporary . Blessed to be back on the continent of Africa. Thanks to Selene Wendt @theglobalartproject and Amal Algaag of @sustainingtheotherwise for this opportunity. . We are pleased to introduce our latest artist-in-residence, Nyugen E. Smith. Smith is a Caribbean-American interdisciplinary artist whose work explores how ritual, memory, and lived experience shape space, identity, and survival. Working across mixed media drawing, assemblage, sculpture, and performance, he engages material experimentation alongside research-driven inquiry to construct layered visual languages. Nyugen E. Smith’s Sustaining the Otherwise residency at LuCAC is part of the project’s year-long multilocational exhibition and artistic program “Practicing Otherwise” supported by Nordic Culture Fund. Sustaining the Otherwise is a collaborative, multilocational research and artistic project about restitution, reparation and transformation, initiated by curators Amal Alhaag and Selene Wendt in 2023. A warm welcome to Nyugen! 📸 @seanpressley_ #lusakacontemporaryartcentre #artistinresidence #lusaka #sustainingtheotherwise #bundlehouse

On Thursday April 9th, as part of our ongoing exhibition, we’ll be hosting a Site of Study with contributions by scholars, thinkers and cultural workers: Selene Wendt @theglobalartproject , Sasha Huber @sashahuber , Jackie Karuti @jackiethe3rd , Amal Alhaag @amalistique & more.

Sustaining the Otherwise: Practicing Freedom and Refusal is a collective and ongoing inquiry into how we might live, think and create otherwise, within and against the enduring structures of coloniality. The exhibition features works by artists whose research and artistic practices offer multiple entrance points for rethinking restitution. 

Within this context, we offer a Site of Study as an opportunity to explore some foundational questions: What does it mean to practice freedom and refusal today? What do we want? What do we say? Which stories, dreams, and forms of ancestral knowledge effectively sustain artists, activists, communities and other troublemakers? Together we zoom into these questions and possibilities of Practicing Freedom and Refusal.

Drinks and snacks will be provided.


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🔥Date: Thursday 9th April
🔥Time: 18:00 - 21:00 
🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597, 
🔥Please RSVP

While restitution over the last two decades has been largely framed as the return of objects, Practicing Freedom and Refusal stretches the conversation beyond the object. It questions what else has been lost alongside and how an object stolen from time could ever rectify the loss of labor, knowledge and history. This exhibition shifts the focus toward dismantling and re-addressing restitution within speculative practices, centering African and diasporic artists who engage memory, inheritance, and survival as ongoing processes.

In the next Thursday 19th March, Masimba Hwati @masimbahwati will invites audiences into a pedagogy of humility, where listening involves the whole body and understanding emerges through movement, proximity, and collective pulse. Toyi-toyi is a powerful, rhythmic form of protest and collective expression deeply rooted in the liberation struggles of Southern Africa. Characterized by high-kneed foot-stomping, rhythmic chanting, and a dynamic call-and-response structure, it originated in the military training camps of Zimbabwean liberation forces (ZIPRA and ZANLA) before becoming an iconic symbol of anti-apartheid resistance in South Africa. More than just a dance, toyi-toyi serves as a living archive of struggle, transforming the human body into a percussive instrument of political defiance. Even after the end of apartheid, toyi-toyi remains a potent and ubiquitous force in the region; it continues to be activated by trade unions, students, and community groups in contemporary Zimbabwe and South Africa. By harnessing a collective pulse, it creates a site where sound and movement converge to reclaim public space and assert the enduring presence of marginalized voices. 19:00 Doors open 19:30 Performance lecture start 🔥Date: Thursday March 19th 🔥Time: 19:00 - 21:00 🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597, 🔥Free, please RSVP Footages resources: APF Human Rights Day protest by Sifuna Zonke, Toyi-Toyi Dance Revolution: The Rhythms of South African Protest by Ethnomusicology Explained!

Join us next Thursday March 19th for a Sonic lecture ‘Toyi-Toyi’ with our exhibiting artist: Masimba Hwati @masimbahwati , as part of Sustaining the Otherwise: Practicing Freedom and Refusal. Toyi-Toyi activates sound, movement, and collective memory as living archives of struggle. Drawing from Chidzimbahwe philosophies of sound and liberation, Masimba Hwati invites audiences into a pedagogy of humility, where listening involves the whole body and understanding emerges through movement, proximity, and collective pulse. This program title references southern Africa’s history of protest and liberation. Toyi-Toyi is a high-kneed foot-stomping dance, rhythmically punctuated by chants and call and response.  After the end of apartheid, toyi-toyi did not disappear. It can also be observed at many kinds of protest in South Africa and Zimbabwe today and remains a common and potent form of protest, used by trade unions, community groups, and students. 19:00  Doors open  19:30  Performance lecture start 🔥Date: Thursday March 19th 🔥Time: 19:00 - 21:00  🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597,  🔥Free, please RSVP

This Friday, with fervent joy we opened the exhibition Practicing Freedom and Refusal, as part of Sustaining the Otherwise, with a Performance and Activation of the sound-based sculpture installation ‘A Score for Atat’s Homestead’ by AYO.  We are so grateful to host the incredible works of AYO @studio__ayo , Masimba Hwati @masimbahwati , Christian Nyampeta @christiannyampeta , Adeju Thompson @adejuthompson and Helena Uambembe @uambembe in our space. Thank you to everyone who joined us in this gathering, and engaged with the offerings as entrance points for rethinking restitution — conveyed through film, sculpture, textile and sound-based works. The exhibition is open Thursday – Saturday, 12pm – 5pm 27 February – 27 April Our upcoming program will be announced soon! Sustaining the Otherwise is a multi-locational research and artistic project about restitution, reparation and transformation that offers a space for artists, curators, and scholars to be in dialogue and to explore the topic of restitution in relation to both material and immaterial culture.  Event Photography by Françoise Bolechowski Installation shots by Nadien Stijns

💐This evening 18:00 opening Sustaining the Otherwise💐 Christian Nyampeta is an artist living in New York from where he organizes programs, exhibitions, screenings, performances, and publications, which are conceived as hosting structures for collective feeling, cooperative thinking, and mutual action. Nyampeta is the convener of Boda Boda Lounge 2022-2024, a trans-African film and video art festival. In New York, Nyampeta convenes the African Film Institute at e-flux in Brooklyn. @christiannyampeta Christian Nyampeta's work is part of the upcoming exhibition Sustaining the Otherwise: Practicing Freedom and Refusal, from 27th February 2026 to 25th April, at Metro54. Initiated by curators Selene Wendt @theglobalartproject , Amal Alhaag @amalistique , Sustaining the Otherwise is a collaborative research and artistic project which explores questions of restitution, reparation and transformation. Practicing Freedom and Refusal is part of the project’s multilocational artistic program, and actively engages with the topic of restitution by centralizing research-based artistic practices and lifeworlds that sit with the tensions of colonial terror and confront the (im)possibility of restitution, rematriation, and freedom. picture 1: still from Director’s Notes, 2025, Christian Nyampeta OPENING: 🔥Date: Friday 27th February 🔥Time: 18:00 - 21:00 🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597, 🔥Please RSVP, link in bio and website

Adeju Thompson is a Nigerian designer and multidisciplinary artist working across fashion, textiles, film, and research. Their practice examines African histories, aesthetics, gender, and future, with a focus on how Indigenous knowledge systems can be carried forward rather than flattened or aestheticized. Adeju Thompson’s work is part of the upcoming exhibition Sustaining the Otherwise: Practicing Freedom and Refusal, from 27th February 2026 to 25th April, at Metro54. Initiated by curators Selene Wendt @theglobalartproject , Amal Alhaag @amalistique , Sustaining the Otherwise @sustainingtheotherwise is a collaborative research and artistic project which explores questions of restitution, reparation and transformation. Practicing Freedom and Refusal is part of the project’s multilocational artistic program, and actively engages with the topic of restitution by centralizing research-based artistic practices and lifeworlds that sit with the tensions of colonial terror and confront the (im)possibility of restitution, rematriation, and freedom. OPENING: 🔥Date: Friday 27th February 🔥Time: 18:00 - 21:00 🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597, 🔥Please RSVP, link in bio and website Adeju's portrait was shot by Ifebusola Shotunde

Masimba Hwati works across sound, sculpture, and performance, tracing everyday acts of resistance, negotiation, and survival. Drawing on indigenous philosophies and sonic vibrational knowing, his practice treats sound not as accompaniment but as an active, emerging, and relational force—one that carries memory, conflict, and ancestral continuities across time and place. Masimba Hwati’s work is part of the upcoming exhibition Sustaining the Otherwise: Practicing Freedom and Refusal, from 27th February 2026 to 25th April, at Metro54. Initiated by curators Selene Wendt @theglobalartproject , Amal Alhaag @amalistique , Sustaining the Otherwise @sustainingtheotherwise is a collaborative research and artistic project which explores questions of restitution, reparation and transformation. Practicing Freedom and Refusal is part of the project’s multilocational artistic program, and actively engages with the topic of restitution by centralizing research-based artistic practices and lifeworlds that sit with the tensions of colonial terror and confront the (im)possibility of restitution, rematriation, and freedom. OPENING: 🔥Date: Friday 27th February 🔥Time: 18:00 - 21:00 🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597, 🔥Please RSVP, link in bio and website Photography by Ina Aydogan

Meet the artist: Helena Uambembe is a South African born artist, who lives and works in Berlin. Her multidisciplinary practice explores the intersections of personal and political histories, tracing the legacies of colonialism, conflict, and migration across Angola, South Africa, and beyond. Drawing on her family’s experience as part of the 32 Battalion of the South African Apartheid Army, Uambembe maps how intimate lives are shaped by broader historical forces. @uambembe Helena Uambembe's work is part of the upcoming exhibition Sustaining the Otherwise: Practicing Freedom and Refusal, from 27th February 2026 to 25th April, at Metro54. Initiated by curators Selene Wendt @theglobalartproject , Amal Alhaag @amalistique , Sustaining the Otherwise @sustainingtheotherwise is a collaborative research and artistic project which explores questions of restitution, reparation and transformation. Practicing Freedom and Refusal is part of the project’s multilocational artistic program, and actively engages with the topic of restitution by centralizing research-based artistic practices and lifeworlds that sit with the tensions of colonial terror and confront the (im)possibility of restitution, rematriation, and freedom. picture 1: portrait by Jamila Kae; picture 2: still from Long Long Long Ago, 2025, Helena Uambembe OPENING: 🔥Date: Friday 27th February 🔥Time: 18:00 - 21:00 🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597, 🔥Please RSVP, link in bio and website

💐18:00 FRIDAY February 27th💐 Join us for the opening reception of Sustaining the Otherwise: Practicing Freedom and Refusal at Metro54. We’ll open with a performance by one of the exhibiting artists: AYO, @studio__ayo ‘A score for Atat’s homestead’ followed by a warm welcome to the space. Join us to celebrate, drinks and snacks will be provided! Christine 'AYO' is a Kampala-raised, Rotterdam-based multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, sound, performance, and film. AYO approaches artist-hood as a daily process of plural world-building. Through time-based and collaborative works, AYO researches how intangible cultural heritage —including language, customs, indigenous knowledge, among others — can come into dialogue with material forms, shaping sites where histories are enlivened, shared, or misunderstood. Practicing Freedom and Refusal unfolds as part of Sustaining the Otherwise, a collective and ongoing inquiry into how we might live, think and create otherwise, within and against the enduring structures of coloniality. We’re delighted to present an incredible array of works from artists Ayo (@studio__ayo ), Masimba Hwati (@masimbahwati ), Christian Nyampeta (@christiannyampeta ), Adeju Thompson (@lagosspaceprogramme ), and Helena Uambembe (@uambembe ). The works are positioned as distinctly shaped by the nuances and complexities of the dual action of practicing freedom and refusal. 🔥Date: Friday 27th February 🔥Time: 18:00 - 21:00 🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597, 🔥Please RSVP, link in bio and website

Join us for the opening reception of Sustaining the Otherwise: Practicing Freedom and Refusal on Friday, February 27th 2026, from 6pm at Metro54. We’ll open with a performance by one of the exhibiting artists: AYO, ‘A score for Atat’s homestead’ followed by a warm welcome to the space from Amal Alhaag @amalistique and Selene Wendt @theglobalartproject . Join us to celebrate, drinks and snacks will be provided! We’re delighted to present an incredible array of works from artists Ayo (@studio__ayo ), Masimba Hwati (@masimbahwati ), Christian Nyampeta (@christiannyampeta ), Adeju Thompson (@lagosspaceprogramme ), and Helena Uambembe (@uambembe ). The works are positioned as distinctly shaped by the nuances and complexities of the dual action of practicing freedom and refusal. Practicing Freedom and Refusal unfolds as part of Sustaining the Otherwise, a collective and ongoing inquiry into how we might live, think and create otherwise, within and against the enduring structures of coloniality.  🔥Date: Friday 27th February 🔥Time: 18:00 - 21:00  🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597,  🔥Please RSVP, link in bio and website

Join us for the opening reception of Sustaining the Otherwise: Practicing Freedom and Refusal on Friday, February 27th 2026,  from 6pm at Metro54, Westerdoksdijk 597, Amsterdam. Practicing Freedom and Refusal unfolds as part of Sustaining the Otherwise, a collective and ongoing inquiry into how we might live, think and create otherwise, within and against the enduring structures of coloniality.  Initiated by curators Selene Wendt and Amal Alhaag, Sustaining the Otherwise is a collaborative research and artistic project which explores questions of restitution, reparation and transformation. Practicing Freedom and Refusal is part of the project’s multilocational artistic program, and actively engages with the topic of restitution by centralizing research-based artistic practices and lifeworlds that sit with the tensions of colonial terror and confront the (im)possibility of restitution, rematriation, and freedom.  With that in mind, Practicing Freedom and Refusal positions the work of artists Ayo (@studio__ayo ), Masimba Hwati (@masimbahwati ), Christian Nyampeta (@christiannyampeta ), Adeju Thompson (@lagosspaceprogramme ), and Helena Uambembe (@uambembe ) as distinctly shaped by the nuances and complexities of the dual action of practicing freedom and refusal. 🔥Date: Friday 27th February 🔥Time: 18:00 - 21:00  🔥Location: Westerdoksdijk 597,  🔥Please RSVP, link in bio and website. We hope to see you at our space, on Friday 27th February at 6pm Image caption by Isabel Okoro for @lagosspaceprogramme