Olalekan Jeyifous: Hydricosmic Litanies

On August 6, the Walker Art Center will open artist, architect, and designer Olalekan Jeyifous’s (US, b. Nigeria, 1977) first museum solo exhibition, entitled Hydricosmic Litanies. Jeyifous, who won the prestigious Silver Lion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, is recognized for reimagining social spaces with consideration toward the dynamic relationships between architecture, community, and the environment. Through his wide-ranging, multidisciplinary work, Jeyifous explores how engagement with and construction of natural and human-made spaces can address critical issues of social equity and ecological justice. 

For his exhibition at the Walker, Olalekan Jeyifous: Hydricosmic Litanies, he takes inspiration from the Mississippi River and themes from Ben Okri’s novel The Famished Road to explore waterways as complex living archives of ecological transformation, displacement, human labor, spiritual significance, and memory. Hydricosmic Litanies will feature new work created especially for this presentation, including CNC-milled reliefs, freestanding and wall-mounted sculptural forms, experimental video, and soundscapes, among other works. Together, the range of objects draws visitors into an imagined riverine enclave that reflects on the happenings and impacts of the past as well as the possibilities of the future.  

Hydricosmic Litanies incorporates a depth of references and expressions, from African diasporic cosmologies and deities such as Yemọja and Mami-Wata to Dakota and Ojibwe water spirits like Uŋkčéǧila and Wiwíla—figures tied to fertility, sustenance, floods, and the guardianship of springs—to the ramifications of colonization, industrialization, and rapid technological advancement on our connections to the environment and to creating just societies and futures. 

Through these potent threads, Hydricosmic Litanies evokes the river as a powerful force that shapes daily life—through both nature’s inherent strength and the profound impacts of the human-made systems built around it. Visitors to the exhibition enter an imagined riverine enclave with platforms positioned as islands rising from sediment and industrial debris. Soundscapes, wall treatments, experimental video create the sensations of a place and people both ancient and present. Sculptural and relief works represent the artist’s “Fluvial Taxonomies” or the remnants and representations of human and spiritual experiences—lives lived and events that continue to shape the future.  

“What has stayed with me about Olalekan’s practice is its extraordinary breadth. He moves across art, architecture, and design without ever losing sight of the political and human stakes of the worlds he imagines,” says exhibition curator Taylor Jasper. “By bringing his expansive visual language into direct conversation with the Mississippi River in Hydricosmic Litanies, Olalekan treats the river not simply as landscape or backdrop, but as a force shaped by history, spirituality, industry, and survival. At a time when questions of climate, infrastructure, and belonging are impossible to ignore, the exhibition offers a powerful and imaginative way to reckon with the worlds we have inherited and those we are still capable of building.”  

Hydricosmic Litanies will be on view from August 6, 2026, through January 3, 2027. It is curated by Taylor Jasper, the Walker’s Susan and Rob White Associate Curator, Visual Arts, whose recent projects also include Kandis Williams: A Surface (2025) and Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love, which opened at the Walker on May 14, 2026. The exhibition reflects the Walker’s long history of offering first solo presentations to artists at different stages of their careers and is the result of a multiyear relationship between Jasper and Jeyifous.

Curator: Taylor Jasper, Susan and Rob White Associate Curator, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center.

Support
Olalekan Jeyifous: Hydricosmic Litanies is made possible with support from the Edward R. Bazinet Charitable Foundation, Carol and Judson Bemis, Jr., and RBC Wealth Management.