Up Suh by James Massiah
I steal away
To Dalston Lane
From CR4 2CU
More
When all go South
You open door
And let me lay
Safe and secure
I steal away
To inner town
To outer reach
To Petit Nice
To heavy pet
In Cynsige Town
Go all around
And let me sleep
I do a round
Then lay me down
A feeble man
I'll rise in time
Be stronger then
Once rested up
With wash in mouth
Then tea in cup
I'll see me out
And steal away
No fire burn
I pray²
You pray
I stay
Parley
No lay
I steal away
Return the gift
To where it's from
To where it lives
To where it's home
To where's it roam
From Brixton Road
To Roman Road
To Saxon Sound
To listen dub
To Tubby I
To Channel One
To Shanti I
To lose the first
Of what it meant
And see it cursed
When home is stolen
Where is home
Anansi's web
Pon garden gnome
Not get me worse
Be better still
I steal away
To home in Hill
One dusty road
One city street
One piece o' yam
Two piece ah meat
My miss uptown
I miss her so
When feeling down
Up so I go
Olu Ogunnaike (b. 1986, London, UK) lives and works in London. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include: Fix Your Face, Spike Island, Bristol (2024); Your Presence is a Present (with Constantin Thun), Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson (2024); An enclosed garden, gb agency, Paris (2022); I’d rather stand, Museum Folkwang, Essen (2021); Crumbs, CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (2021); The Same Way You Came In?, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2021); London Plain, Cell Project Space, London (2020). Recent group exhibitions include: Air de Repos, CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (forthcoming); Reluctant Gravities, Hollybush Gardens, London (2024); Systemic Love, CAPC, Bordeaux (2023); To “the fire next time”, Villa Arson, Nice (2023); Testament, Goldsmiths CCA, London (2022); Domestic Drama, HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Graz (2021); Reconfigured, curated by Rose Easton, Timothy Taylor, New York (2021). Is the soil right? is Ogunnaike’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
Photography by Jack Elliot Edwards