The Power Plant

Light Cream Pods is a new exhibition by Fatimah Tuggar that explores the calabash. Using augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI) and animatronic sculptures, the exhibition offers interactive encounters that reflect on the meanings, uses, and possible futures of this culturally significant vine fruit, set within architectural facades inspired by the Tubali vernacular design of the Hausa people of the Sahel region of the African continent.

Known for its versatility, the fruit of the calabash can be eaten when fresh. When dried and emptied, the decorated pods can be used for a wide variety of utilitarian and artistic purposes: storage containers, inkwells, bowls, and musical instruments, for example. The traditional uses of the calabash and its associated crafts and economies are currently under threat in West Africa as Indigenous customs are displaced by global commodification, petrochemical pollution, and poisonous plastics.

Light Cream Pods examines this situation through a multi-layered approach that sees centuries-old traditions sitting alongside new technologies. The exhibition is structured as a shared courtyard, with “doors” and “windows” containing arrangements of vine and tree calabashes decorated through carving, painting, dying and burn marking that become the trigger for AR experiences. Visitors are able to witness the highly creative and playful calabash traditions that persist to this day while listening to calabash artists talk about their lives and the challenges they face. Alongside this, an AI livestream speculatively imagines the future evolution of calabash-based objects, and two videos consider the devastating effects of plastic pollution in West Africa, while gourd-based animatronics bloom and flutter at intervals throughout the exhibition.

With Light Cream Pods, Tuggar presents the calabash as a signifier and container for ideas that foster environmental equity in a time of pending global destruction. The interactive element of her playful, mediated exploration positions the viewer as an active participant, one whose power and agency has the potential to generate real change in the world. Tuggar introduces the age-old traditions of the calabash as a solution to some of the most urgent issues of our time, and a radical prompt to imagine other, possible futures.

Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE, co-produced with The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada, with the support of the University of Florida School of Art + Art History, USA. Courtesy of BintaZarah Studios.

The following workers, artisans, crafts persons, research scholars, facilitators, technologists, translators, scientists, hackers, jammers, creative talent, and volunteers have provided support to the artist and BintaZarah Studios: Yemboado Charles, Valerie Luciow, Tirogo Alidou, Thaddaeus Bourne, Stephen Diapi, Sherry Sparks, Samba Niang, Rush Rankin, Ras Baba, Pape Niang, Oumar Ly, Michael Lightsmith, Leonardo Villalón, Kalidou Démbélé, Javier Cruz, Ibrahim A. Tuggar, Gilad Dor, Gabriele Belletti, Fiona McLaughlin, Ester Nyamba Kpange, Dinorah Vazquez, Dario Srbu, Dane Blacic, Dan Maraya Jos, Carson Teal, Bob Mendez, Binta Tuggar, Benjamin Soares, Benedicta Opoku-Mensah, Bamie. Siaka Steve Street, Augustine Danso, Amadou Cissokho, Alexander Abair, Alex Opoku, Abou Diop, Abdul Kanu, Abdou Karim Diagne, Stefan Subin, Slobodan Đurić, Papa Badlane, Hitler Bobo, Haris Ramic, Caslav Stepanovic, Andjela Mihajilovski, and Adrian Djura.