What’s wrong with us?!?

This month Fusion Arts supported Unlock the Chains Collective and Anne Griffiths in presenting What's wrong with us?!?, a bold, mixed-media group exhibition featuring 14 diverse artists exploring the questions:

How do we see the world?
How does the world affect us?
Have we lost our humanity?

Artists Rachel Barbaresi, Jo Brown, John Comino-James, Khisha Clarke, Euton Daley, Anne Griffiths, Amy Harris, Usha Kar, Hanna Klien-Thomas, Kyra-Sky, Sylvia Morgado, Rawz, Ismael Rodriguez, and John Umney showcased work across a diverse range of practices including painting, sculpture, installation, textiles, collage, photography, spoken word, and film, all creating powerful statements on the exhibition’s themes of colonialism and imperialism.

The exhibition opened on July 10th in Fusion Arts’ Park End space in an evening which– reflecting Unlock the Chains Collective’s mission to engage communities with the arts through storytelling, poetry and performance– featured powerful spoken word performances. Including the emotional and evocative work of Asher Dust AJ, Kemastry, Euton Daley, and Amantha Edmead. An event ‘full of conversation, performance and strong art’.

Among the many powerful works on view is a striking sculptural installation by Venezuelan artist Ismael Rodriguez. In this piece, clay and straw become vessels of memory. Rodriguez reimagines the looted bronzes of the Kingdom of Benin, not to replicate them, but to make their absence visible — to confront their forced displacement and continued silencing behind Western museum glass.

“In Oxford, where I live, I walk among objects that do not belong to me, yet neither do they belong to those who display them.”

By assembling fragile materials and found objects, Rodriguez’s work explores the tension between dispossession and resistance.

“This piece is not just a tribute—it is an open wound, a broken mirror where colonized cultures still reflect themselves: vibrant, stubborn, alive.”

The exhibition ran alongside a rich program of events including workshops run in the space by participating artists. These were free to attend with all materials provided and participation added nuance and understanding to the work on display. Rachel Barbaresi led a workshop focusing on Unlock the Chains’ ongoing piece the Scroll of Honour which recognises individuals of African diaspora who have contributed to the city of Oxford. This event invited participants to contribute to the evolving nature of the powerful tribute by stitching names onto the scroll.

There were also two workshops featured as part of the Skills on Wheels project, an initiative that aims to train and empower women and youth by bringing African craft directly to their communities and groups. The first was a relaxed, hands-on workshop led by Amy Harris where participants used vibrant Ankara fabric to make beautiful bow headdresses. This was followed by a beaded bracelet session on the 26th of July. These sessions celebrated shared creativity and cultural exchange, allowing participants to appreciate the beauty of simple materials and the connections that art and shared stories can bring across communities. Both the workshops and the exhibition as a whole served as an invitation to consider the voices of those not often heard and the value of engaging with a diverse range of creative media.