8.1

ACTS OF REST

Esther Ige
Esther Ige
Ruth Ige
Ruth Ige
17.07.25–23.08.25
Season is delighted to present Acts of rest, Esther Ige and Ruth Ige’s first duo exhibition.
Drawing on Afrofuturist thought, precolonial practices from Nigeria, and their shared experiences of living in diaspora, the sisters reflect on notions of rest, healing, liberation, joy, safety, and the sacred in relation to black people and the black body. Their works span diverse media, including painting, installation, poetry, and moving image. Esther presents a series of meditative video works that explore states of rest, recovery, and protection. Ruth concentrates on paintings that incorporate natural materials that evoke ritual and memory, and promote healing and flourishing, including blue spirulina and Nigerian dried leaves. Her larger pieces break free from the stretcher, cascade from the rafters, and lie in repose on the floor. Both artists traverse the realms of past and future, actuality and imagination, dreaming through the lens of heritage.★☆★Esther Ige, Ruth Ige, and Season extend warm thanks to installer Jamie Chapman, photographer Samuel Hartnett, Artspace Aotearoa, Ramesh Narsai, and Benjamin Brooking of Popular.

RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 12), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
105 x 148mm

RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 13), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
148 x 105mm
RUTH IGE
Entry/Exit, 2025
Acrylic on unstretched canvas
10000 x 1600mm

RUTH IGE
Hold on to your dreams, 2025
Acrylic on stretched canvas nailed to stretched canvas
915 x 610mm
RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 5), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
148 x 105mm

RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 11), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
148 x 105mm
RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 8), 2025
Acrylic on paper
148 x 105mm

RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 10), 2025
Acrylic on paper
148 x 105mm
RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 7), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
148 x 105mm

RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 9), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
148 x 105mm
RUTH IGE
Garden between realms of multiple futures, 2025
Acrylic, acrylic binder, acrylic medium, black ochre dry pigment, ultramarine blue dry pigment, baobab powder, dried Ewuro/Onugbu (bitter leaf), dried Ugu leaf, dried Uziza leaf and dried zobo leaves on unstretched canvas; acrylic, acrylic binder, dried Ewuro/Onugbu (bitter leaf), dried Ugu leaf, dried Uziza leaf on stretched canvas
1800 x 2400mm (stretched portion)

RUTH IGE
Time portal, 2025
Acrylic medium, black ochre dry pigment and blue spirulina on stretched canvas
1500 x 2000mm
RUTH IGE
And you found rest when you learnt to trust yourself, 2025
Acrylic, acrylic binder, blue spirulina, dried Ewuro/Onugbu (bitter leaf), dried Ugu leaf and dried Uziza leaf on stretched canvas
915 x 610mm
ARTISTS' STATEMENT
As human beings, we are demanded to labour. We are demanded to labour through outdated expectations, pressures and constraints. We are demanded to labour by ominous systems riddled with prejudice, hatred, bigotry, consumerism and hierarchy. Where human beings are merely a tool.
The black body is demanded to labour. We have seen this historically in horrific ways. We see it in the present day in the ways society demands the black body to be and to show up. The demand to perform ideas of blackness. The demand to simply perform. The demand to prove one’s worth. To prove one’s humanity. The demand to be the sacrifice for systems not built for all. The demand to be ashamed of one’s being, skin and ancestry. The demand to overcompensate for stereotypes people try to attach to blackness. The demand to navigate these structures and to survive them daily. It is the demand of physical labour, spiritual labour, labour of the mind and soul.★☆★Rest is power. With the continuous navigation of broken systems and their demands on the black body, mind and soul, rest is resistance. Rest is political. The juxtaposition of the words ‘acts’ and ‘rest’ is a deliberate oxymoron. It emphasizes this complex layer of rest and highlights the active stance and the layer of protest in practicing rest. Rest is not passive. It is an act of rebellion and empowerment.★☆★There are systems of rest that have been part of the black community for centuries. Art, music, imagination, poetry and traditional medicine and practices are all kinds of rest that the black community has used to give voice to pain, to heal, to fight and to escape. Rest is holistic. Rest is when you acknowledge and honour all the parts of your being. To rest is to constantly advocate for oneself.★☆★The duo exhibition Acts of rest is an exploration of rest, healing, protection and sacredness in relation to the black body, mind and spirit. Acts of rest are accessed through ideas of resistance, healing, self-care, protection, joy, escape, liberation, the sacred, future imaginings and precolonial practices.★☆★Esther presents silent, meditative moving images that speak on rest, self-care, protection, access and sacredness in relation to the black body and mind. She draws a cloth symbolically as an act of creation—making a space for healing and rest—but also, in the same breath, as an act of protection of space. She utilizes the cloth as a boundary and refusal of easy accessibility. She pairs the work with a poem that further positions the stance of the work as a position of sitting. Sitting historically was utilized in acts of protest. It was and is an act of taking one’s power and humanity back.★☆★Ruth’s work uses imagination as an act of rest to access healing, safety, heritage, the sacred, escape and power. She uses Nigerian dried leaves used by the Igbo and Yoruba in traditional food and medicine, and various other healing substances, whilst playing around with painting forms. She envelops and immerses her people and worlds in blue. Blue is a cultural layering, a symbol of protection, a warding off of evil. She uses blue as bricks for construction of worlds and portals of re-empowerment, creativity, transcendence, escape, healing and rest.★☆★Rest is not easy. Honouring one’s rest is challenged daily by society and its systems. As we have been brainwashed about our rights for rest and self-healing. It is a daily wrestle. However, through the portal of art we find a glimmer of rest.
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ESTHER IGE
A space to sit (part 1), 2025
Digital video
04:38 running time

A SPACE TO SIT

ESTHER IGE
I will sit down, 2025
Digital print on vellum paper
297 x 210mm
ESTHER IGE
Exhale, 2025
DTF transfer on polyester chiffon
8000 x 1480mm

ESTHER IGE
A space to sit (part 2), 2025
Digital video
03:46 running time

ESTHER IGE
A space to sit (part 3), 2025
Digital video
04:23 running time
RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 1), 2025
Acrylic on paper
148 x 105mm

RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 2), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
105 x 148mm

RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 6), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
148 x 105mm
RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 4), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
148 x 105mm

RUTH IGE
Realms of rest (part 3), 2025
Acrylic, acrylic medium and blue spirulina on paper
148 x 105mm