Nirveda Alleck – Spread Over the Ocean Bed.

For the 22nd Giornata del Contemporaneo, Black Liquid Art Gallery opens Spread Over the Ocean Bed, the first solo exhibition in Italy of Nirveda Alleck (Mauritius, 1975), curated by Antonella Pisilli. The gallery is open with free admission from 2 to 8 pm; the opening takes place at 6 pm in the presence of the curator.
At the centre of the exhibition is the video Insular Variations II – Arise (2016-2026), shown concurrently at the 2nd International Biennale of Contemporary Art of Durrës, alongside seven paintings made between 2017 and 2024.
A woman stands still in shallow water, at the exact point where the land ends and the ocean begins. Beneath her feet lies a continent: beneath Mauritius there really are traces of Mauritia, an ancient continental landmass sunk into the Indian Ocean, of which zircon crystals almost three billion years old remain. The whole exhibition takes shape from here: something can disappear from the surface without ceasing to exist.
The theme of this edition, Geographies of Contemporaneity, runs directly through Alleck’s work. Her paintings question the geographies handed down to us: that of continents, that of colonial archives, that of identities. In the large frieze Continuum Dakar, men and women met in the street are painted without anything that might explain who they are: we see them perfectly, and yet we cannot classify them. It is a reversal of the colonial gaze that meets Édouard Glissant’s right to opacity, also at the heart of the series How Dark Are Your Thoughts. In Transcendence the artist gives colour back to a view engraved in 1812. With Divine Weapons, She had many thoughts in her head and Heart on Leaves the gaze turns to her own family inheritance, down to an anatomical heart sewn from a fabric that has travelled between India, Europe and Mauritius.
Nirveda Alleck trained at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town and at the Glasgow School of Art. She has exhibited at the Dak’Art Biennale, where she was a laureate in 2010, at Art Basel, at the Bamako Encounters photography biennale (2020) and at the Gwangju Biennale (2024). She is represented by Black Liquid Art Gallery.
The exhibition continues until 5 December 2026, Tuesday to Saturday, 2-8 pm, free admission.