10-04-2025
On the occasion of the 2025 Kaiserring Scholarship, the Mönchehaus Museum presents the solo exhibition The Archive Is An Altar by Evan Ifekoya.
The Archive Is An Altar opens a space of reverence and devotion – a practice of dedication in honor of Yemaya, of the ocean. How is history written? Whose voices are heard, preserved, and remembered – and which gaps need to be filled? For Evan Ifekoya, (audio-)visual culture is a central medium for engaging with the history of the Yorùbá in Nigeria, their present, and traditions devoted to the ancestors. Ifekoya understands the archive not as a static collection, but as a living, ritual space – an altar.
At the heart of the exhibition is the new video and sound installation MODUPE (2025), being shown in Germany for the first time. MODUPE is an experimental documentary film that brings together a batá drum ensemble, voice, and movement to create a new entry in the cultural memory of the Afro-Cuban priestess of the Orisha Yemayá, Amelia Pedroso (1947–2000). Described in the Nigerian cultural magazine Glendora Review in 2004 as a “rebellious priestess,” Amelia Pedroso was an outstanding musician and an openly lesbian priestess of the Yorùbá tradition.
The exhibition at the Mönchehaus Museum traces the paths of her life and work, honoring her as a feminist pioneer of the batá drum – a spiritual instrument whose ritual practice has traditionally been reserved for men – and expands the fragmentarily transmitted archive with a queer, decolonial perspective.
Evan Ifekoya awarded the 2025 Kaiserring Fellowship for Young Art The Mönchehaus Museum Goslar has awarded the 2025 Kaiserring Fellowship to artist Evan Ifekoya. The decision of the expert jury honors Ifekoya’s outstanding, cross-media and research-based practice, which reflects and challenges societal realities in a multilayered manner. The jury was particularly impressed by Ifekoya’s sensitive yet powerful use of space and sound, evoking moments of spiritual resonance and healing. Ifekoya lives and works near London.
Evan Ifekoya (they / them) is a Spirit led artist and strength and embodiment practitioner exploring ancestry, belief and belonging through practices of self-archiving and blackness in abundance. Through their art, they hope to foster a deeper sense of connection and awareness, creating spaces where liberation and refuge are not just ideals but lived experiences.
They established the collectively run and QTIBPOC (queer, trans*, intersex, black and people of colour) led Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.) in 2018. They were awarded the Paul Hamlyn bursary in 2021, the Kleinwort Hambros Emerging Artists Prize in 2019 and the Arts Foundation Award for Live Art sponsored by the Yoma Sasberg Estate in 2017.
They have presented exhibitions, moving image and performances across UK, Europe and Internationally, most recently: ‘Feel The Sound’ at Barbican London (2025), ‘Stranieri Ovunque –Foreigners Everywhere’ 60th Venice Biennial, ‘Traces of Ecstasy’ ICA VCU Richmond Virginia and Lagos Biennial (2024), Guest Artist Space Lagos (2023) and ‘~Resonant Frequencies’, Migros Museum, Zurich (2022).