Turner Contemporary Launches New Annual Sunley Gallery commission with Cassi Namoda
Namoda's vibrant and figurative images
This summer, Turner Contemporary invites artist Cassi Namoda to transform the iconic floor-to-ceiling windows of the Sunley Gallery overlooking Margate's beaches and the North Sea.
Marking Namoda's first institutional project in Europe, this new commission inaugurates Turner Contemporary's annual programme inviting artists to engage with the gallery's distinctive architecture and coastal setting.
Namoda's vibrant and figurative images interweave the personal with the historical, and the everyday with cultural mythologies. Born in Mapoto, Mozambique and currently living in Italy, she has lived across Africa, Europe, America and Asia. These experiences have influenced her perspective, allowing her to create nuanced visualisations of post-colonial Mozambique within an increasingly globalised world.
Recognised primarily for her paintings, Namoda's installation for the Sunley Gallery window is inspired by a recent painting of two figures on a beach.
Drawing from her early film studies and interest in storytelling, Namoda creates images inspired by found photographs and memories, each populated by imagined characters. Her paintings function like cinematic stills, capturing fleeting moments that hint at broader, untold narratives. Influenced by Mozambican magical realism, film, mythology, and art history, her landscapes possess an ethereal, dreamlike quality. This atmosphere is heightened by her distinctive colour palette that seamlessly bridges the mundane and the metaphysical, grounding her work in the everyday and the spiritual.
Engaging with the histories of artist-designed stained glass windows, particularly those in chapels such as Henri Matisse's luminous work at the Chapelle du Rosaire in the South of France, Namoda reimagines the window, bathed in colour and light, as a place of contemplation for visitors over the summer months. Namoda's window will also be illuminated after dark, ensuring its radiant presence remains visible from the shoreline, creating a work that is visible by day and night.
This project follows the success of Beatriz Milhazes' window installation O Esplendor, which formed part of her exhibition Maresias in summer 2023, and attracted over 140,000 visitors to the gallery.
Clarrie Wallis, Director of Turner Contemporary said: "We're delighted to showcase Cassi's work for our inaugural Sunley Gallery Summer Commission, transforming our iconic space with imagery that bridges different histories and creates a luminous presence visible from gallery to shore."
Cassi Namoda said: "It's an honour to be chosen to activate the Sunley Gallery window at Turner Contemporary in Margate. I have given close consideration to the gallery's connection to JMW Turner, his history, and his landscapes – and my new window commission will launch right on time for Turner's 250th anniversary. Margate's sandy coastline and vintage amusement arcades were an interesting place to explore when I arrived at the realm of my personal narrative, "What are you doing by my sea?" It's a joy to tie in these two narratives and histories in this new work."
The Sunley Gallery Summer Commission is curated by Melissa Blanchflower, Senior Curator at Turner Contemporary. Cassi Namoda realised this project with designer Charles Dorrance-King. Production is by Vinyline.
