October Gallery returns to 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London (16th – 19th October, 2025), with a commanding six-artist presentation that turns the spotlight on material innovation as a vehicle for resistance and historical reckoning. The booth showcases a spectrum of work from the African continent and its diaspora, uniting figures like LR Vandy, Alexis Peskine, Xanthe Somers, Zana Masombuka, Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga, and Romuald Hazoumè. This convergence offers a potent look at how contemporary artists are repurposing traditional craft and discarded materials to confront issues of colonialism, resource extraction, and ancestral memory.
Africans Column recently engaged a four-way conversation with October Gallery Curator Eleri Fanshawe and exhibiting artists LR Vandy, Xanthe Somers, and Zana Masombuka. They delve into the philosophy behind using materials linked to labour and heritage, revealing a collective dedication to anchoring global art discourse in culturally specific narratives while expanding the definition of contemporary practice.
This in-depth feature explores the dynamic synergy between these artists and the gallery as they champion African creativity on a major international stage at Somerset House.
The Curator’s Lens: Weaving a Multidisciplinary Web
Curator Eleri Fanshawe speaks about the gallery’s approach to synthesizing highly diverse practices—from ceramics and sculpture to photography and painting—into one coherent statement for the prestigious art fair.
Eleri Fanshawe: As a London-based gallery with a long history with 1-54, we see this fair as an essential platform. Our goal this year was to present a selection that wasn’t just diverse, but that highlighted the sheer breadth and urgency of contemporary African art. We’ve championed artists from the Global South since 1979, so we’re always looking for works that are provocative, compelling, and utterly central to current artistic dialogue.
Fanshawe noted that the visual contrasts actually sharpen the conceptual links between the six artists.
Eleri Fanshawe: The synergy in our booth is what excites me. You have Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga’s stark, bold paintings reflecting on the toxic toll of mining in the DRC, his figures mapped with circuitry patterns that signal digital resource conflicts. Juxtapose that with Xanthe Somers’ vibrant ceramics from Zimbabwe; her coiled vessels, referencing traditional Binga basket-weaving, use playful color to critique eco-racist practices and colonial displacement. Their aesthetics diverge, but their political core—the cost of extraction on the land and the body—is identical.
She continued by tracing these connections through material innovation:
Eleri Fanshawe: LR Vandy’s new sculptures, like Spinning a Yarn, continue this thread. She uses obsolete carpet shuttles and netting needles, rendering them in indigo and gold. It’s a deliberate reclamation: a nod to “women’s work” contrasted with the harsh history of resource extraction tied to enslaved labour. Similarly, Romuald Hazoumè’s satirical masques bidons made from petrol canisters use a repurposed, discarded object to strike at political corruption and environmental crises.
The conversation then shifts to works centered on spiritual resilience:
Eleri Fanshawe: This political critique is balanced by explorations of interior and ancestral strength. Zana Masombuka’s new series is a deeply personal and cultural statement; she honors her late grandfather by blending photography with intricate, sculpted Ndebele beaded frames—drawing patterns from objects of kingship and guidance. This spiritual framing echoes the powerful, golden Alexis Peskine portraits, built up using thousands of hammered nails and consecrated with sacred herbs. His works radiate a transcendent strength, capturing the self-possession and resilience of the African diaspora. These are the kinds of connections we hope visitors discover—an interwoven dialogue of critique, kinship, and enduring spiritual strength.
The Artist Perspective: The Material is the Message
The exhibiting artists discuss how their unique media function as more than just a surface, becoming archives and political tools themselves.
Bobfly, 2024. Wood, hemp rope, ribbon and metal, 80 x 30 x 24 cm.
© LR Vandy. Courtesy the Artist and October Gallery. Photo © Jonathan Greet
LR Vandy: Repurposing the Relic
Sculptor LR Vandy discussed the visceral necessity of working with found objects and how these materials carry their own history.
LR Vandy: The materials I choose—hulls, shuttles—aren’t neutral; they come to the studio already vibrating with a dualistic history. They have a rich patina from years of use. The narrative is driven by these found objects, and the visceral response I get from juxtaposing them ensures the work is communicating instantly.
She articulated the purpose of her new sculptures:
LR Vandy: I see the work with obsolete shuttles, needles, and thread as a necessary act of reclamation. By reframing materials linked to trade and colonialism as symbols of survival, I honor all women’s labour. Across many cultures, spinning and weaving connect the earthly and the divine. In Africa, women’s weaving has long been an economic and cultural archive. My work insists that women’s roles must be visible in these histories to incite dialogue and acknowledge their importance. As for the Hull series, I’m thrilled the duality is visible. Their beauty, like powerful guardians, draws people in, compelling them to confront the deep political weight within their visual language.
Common Threads, 2025. Glazed stoneware, 60 x 55 x 55 cm.
© Xanthe Somers. Courtesy the Artist and October Gallery.
Xanthe Somers: Clay as a Container for the Invisible
Ceramicist Xanthe Somers elaborated on her process of using clay—an enduring, earth-based medium—to challenge contemporary exploitation and invisibility.
Xanthe Somers: I utilize clay because it is an incredible medium for holding narrative. It is an archive for human stories, a material taken from the ground that literally houses our histories. The pieces at 1-54 focus on the undervalued and invisible labour of women in the domestic sphere. I’m taking traditions like weaving and clay—historically confined to women’s hands—and bringing their narratives into a contemporary context.
On using disruption and ornamentation as a critique:
Xanthe Somers: I use bold colors and excessive ornamentation to draw the viewer in, but the process of making is a metaphor. My coiled baskets embody tension: they are weighted, folding, and holding, but also deliberately fraying. I use “unravelling” as a central motif to reflect the fragility of narratives, leaving threads loose and holes emerging under strain. This constant interplay of cohesion and collapse is how I articulate the socio-political critiques of exploited labour and eco-racist practices in the Global South.
Is’bawo Sok’thoma: The Beginning, 2025.
C-Print on Baryta 270 archival paper in beaded frame.Wood, glass beads, glass, cotton thread, indigenous weaving grass, vinyl 200.5 x 102 x 4 cm.Edition of 2 plus 1 artist’s proof.
© Zana Masombuka. Courtesy the Artist and October Gallery. Photo by Sphamandla Dlamini.
Zana Masombuka: The Ritual of the Frame
Artist Zana Masombuka described her practice not just as expression, but as a ritual, where her Ndebele heritage and spirituality define the structure of her art.
Zana Masombuka: My artmaking is inspired by the fluidity I witnessed in Ndebele women’s traditional practices; we view the artwork itself as a living, personified energy—a co-creator. This approach allows the layered historical and ancestral narratives to naturally find resolution. Over recent years, I’ve realized my practice functions as a ritual that expands my perspective on its role.
Masombuka explained the profound connection between her photographic process and Ndebele culture:
Zana Masombuka: My current works are photographic sculptures where the photograph and the beaded frame are extensions of each other; they cannot exist separately, like a human and their shadow. In my language, beads—um’ncamo—signify “presence” or “beautifying oneself,” but they are also sacred, creating spiritual echoes and portals because they are made from the soil. The Ndebele word for photography, Ukuthebula, means “to capture the essence or light of living beings,” and is also used in a ritual context for out-of-body experiences—where one is “captured” in time. The delicate balance between the technical (linear) photography and the instinctive (cyclical) meditative beading process allows us to create new dimensions of conversation about time itself.
1-54: Affirmation and Global Reach
The four participants agreed that the fair’s value lies in its power to convene and affirm.
LR Vandy: The importance of 1-54 is undeniable—its effect on participants and viewers is enormous. It allows us to see ourselves within a necessary international framework of Black contemporary art, constantly updating and expressing our connected histories.
Xanthe Somers: Art fairs are pivotal. They are a significant gathering point for people, ideas, and communities that offer far greater visibility than a traditional gallery setting. It’s a space where dialogue can truly shape community narratives and ideas for the future.
Zana Masombuka: 1-54 is important not just for amplifying African voices, but for providing an organic discourse where philosophy, tradition, and innovation from the continent and diaspora are centered. As a South African artist, it has profoundly shown me how connected we all are, moving beyond the colonial gaze to affirm the power of community that spans all borders.
Eleri Fanshawe concluded with a vision for the visitors:
Eleri Fanshawe: I hope visitors leave our booth appreciating the extraordinary talent and quality of work. I want the booth to be an invitation—especially for new collectors—to engage directly with the works’ visual power and material innovation. Ultimately, October Gallery’s 46-year legacy continues here: introducing new audiences to bold, thought-provoking art. We hope everyone leaves with a sense of discovery, connection, and curiosity for the immense breadth of African contemporary practice.
October Gallery’s presentation at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London (16th – 19th October, 2025), stands as a powerful nexus where material innovation meets profound socio-political critique. Through the curatorial lens of Eleri Fanshawe, the diverse practices of LR Vandy, Alexis Peskine, Xanthe Somers, Zana Masombuka, Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga, and Romuald Hazoumè coalesce not through uniformity, but through a shared commitment to addressing layered histories of power, labour, and spiritual continuity.
The in-depth conversation with the artists illuminates how materials themselves become active participants in the narrative: Vandy’s obsolete trade tools reclaim women’s erased labour; Somers’ disrupted ceramics use the aesthetic of “unravelling” to critique colonial legacies in Zimbabwe; and Masombuka’s beaded photographic sculptures create powerful, temporal portals to ancestral wisdom. As a collective, the exhibition reframes what is often dismissed as “craft” or “peripheral art” into a central, vital force.
Ultimately, 1-54 serves as more than just a marketplace; it is a critical platform, affirmed by the artists, that amplifies contemporary African and diasporic voices, fosters organic intellectual discourse, and showcases the incredible breadth of creativity that spans borders. The presentation successfully champions the Gallery’s long-standing mission: to encourage new audiences and collectors alike to engage directly with art that is not merely reflecting the world, but actively shaping its future narratives.
