On August 23, 2023, the Gallery hosted a conversation between founder and Artistic Director of the QDance Center, artist, researcher, innovator, and social impact engineer Qudus Onikeku, and professor, artist, teacher, social and spiritual activist Manuel Piña, about the intersection of transcendence and technology, to imagine collective African and Afro-Diasporic futures as part of the programming for Jeremy Shaw’s exhibition, Phase Shifting Index.

The conversation was moderated by the Education Programmer of The Polygon Gallery, Oluwasayo Olowo-Ake.

Manuel Piña is an artist, pedagogue, and social and spiritual activist. His research adopts spirituality and technology as a way of addressing present realities and challenges. He was born in Havana, and graduated as mechanical engineer in Vladimir, Russia, in 1983. He began exhibiting his art in 1992, and has been a professor in UBC’s Faculty of Art History and Visual Arts since 2004.

Piña is co-founder of the Newtribes School, an online and land-based global network of healers, teachers, and cultural and software activists working towards the preservation and dissemination of ancestral wisdoms and languages from around the globe.

His work has been exhibited in the Americas and Europe including the Havana Biennale, the Istanbul Biennale, Kunsthalle Vienna, Grey Gallery, LACMA, Dorsky Gallery, N.Y., and DAROS Museum.

Qudus Onikeku is the founder and Artistic Director of the QDance Center, a world-renowned artist researcher, innovator, and social impact engineer, who subliminally uses art for non-art outcomes. After completing higher education in France in 2009, Qudus launched his first company YK projects in Paris, with which he created several solo and group dance pieces to critical acclaim. In 2014, he returned to Lagos with his partner Hajarat, and together they co-founded the QDance Center, an incubator with which they examined and experimented with the possible intersections between art and society at large.

Qudus has been a favourite on major international stages and festivals across 60 countries including Biennale de Lyon, Festival d’Avignon, Centre Pompidou, Philharmonie de Paris in France, TED Global, Venice Biennale and Festival TransAmerique Montréal among others. His dance works are in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Oluwasayo Taiwo Olowo-Ake is a curator, singer, songwriter, and artist, born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. She is the curator of Oruko mi ni: Reinterpreting Ìbejì and Oruko mi: Taiyewo and Kehinde. Her podcast Curatorial-ly Speaking engages contemporary African artists in conversation about their art practice. Oluwasayo currently works at The Polygon Gallery as the Education Programmer.