Ile Omi: House of Water is a projection-mapped 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 projection mapping technology 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 community’s rich cultural traditions, innovative technologies, and harmonious relationships with the surrounding marine ecosystem.

The project uses a combination of archival photography and 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.

Ile Omi is part of the Diaphanous series – An immersive collection of art, telling our stories and guiding guests through a whimsical, imaginative collection of experiences and material objects. This collection blends art, technology, and history to re-imagine and re-tell stories of the African Diaspora that have been excluded or marginalized due to racial and gender biases. Each offering embodies a theme of something or someone that could only exist now but re-framed as if it did exist in a prior time, space, or dimension.

additional support provided by Tough Dumplin, Garey Kennebrew and Shea Zephir

Thank you to our exhibition sponsors: Blink Cincinnati and Epson America

Thank you to our PAR-Projects and the season sponsors: ArtsWave, Ohio Arts Council, and Northside Bank & Trust Company.