Exhibition

Sokari Douglas Camp: Fashion and Fortune

21 May-27 Jun 2026
PV 20 May 2026, 6-8.30pm

October Gallery

London WC1N 3AL

Overview

October Gallery continues its season of Contemporary African Art with a solo exhibition by internationally renowned artist and sculptor, Sokari Douglas Camp CBE. Titled Fashion and Fortune, the artist brings together large and smaller scale steel sculptures alongside selected prints. Douglas Camp, as in previous exhibitions, mines the historical records of earlier visual artists to examine power, commerce and colonialism within a broad Caribbean and, by extension, African context.

Drawing inspiration from Robert S. DuPlessis’ book The Material Atlantic, Douglas Camp explores clothing, commerce and emblems of wealth as reflected in fashion and dress. Through intricate metal figures, elaborate headdresses, and the incorporation of coins, the artist highlights both the oppression embedded in colonial systems and the creativity with which marginalized people reasserted identity and status. Furthermore, by delving into her own Nigerian family’s complex dress code, Douglas Camp deftly plays upon imbuing fabrics and modes of dress with new meanings.

With these exhilarating new works presenting an impressive selection of motifs including dazzling displays of flowers and fruit, including a lively depiction of the tropical pineapple, she observes how people of diverse ethnicities, social positions and occupations impacted the emergence of a distinctive sartorial culture across the Atlantic world. These latest sculptures tease out the complex intertwining histories of trade, colonialism and lineage, while simultaneously celebrating the resilience of the people of Africa and the African diaspora throughout the globe.

Artists

Sokari Douglas Camp

Nigerian, b. 1958

Nearby

Nuliaminik Neqilik: The Flesh of Wives

Alekos Fassianos: The Dreamers

Herald St | Museum St

Mikey Cuddihy: Curious Yellow

Velma Rosai-Makhandia: TO WITNESS! THE STRANGE, THE NUMINOUS

Union Pacific, WC1

The British Museum

In-/Visible Spectrums: Contemporary Video Art from the Sinosphere

Paul Housley: Echo's Raft

Cedric Bardawil

The Coming of Age

Wellcome Collection

Thérèse Oulton: Holding Patterns

Vardaxoglou Gallery

Response to a Request (or spasm of the soul)

Elizabeth Xi Bauer, Exmouth Market

Milly Thompson | Aroma Venus

Amanda Wilkinson

Tai Shani: The Spell or The Dream

Seurat and the Sea

Nick Goss: Eel Pie Hotel

The Fallen Easel: John Baldessari, Sharif Farrag and Christina Forrer

Maximillian William

Catherine Opie: To Be Seen

National Portrait Gallery

Abigail Dudley: A place after a place