Harbour House presents The Fullness Between Shadows, a solo exhibition by Plymouth-based artist Ashanti Hare, whose work is deeply connected to their heritage as a descendant of the Windrush Generation. Combining sculpture, movement, and performance, Hare explores memory, ancestry, and the ways people, place, and spirit are connected.
The title of the exhibition comes from Bakongo Cosmology, which understands life as an ongoing cycle between this world and the otherworld, “between the shadows.” The works invite reflection on the fullness of life and the layers of memory, energy, and presence that surround us.
At the heart of the exhibition are large-scale, wearable sculptures, inspired by West African traditions and Caribbean histories, incorporating seasonal local plants, textiles, and wildlife imagery. Alongside these are assemblages made from found and everyday materials, exploring how objects, movement, and textiles can reflect the ways people move between lands, borders, worlds, and social systems.
Community collaboration is central to the project. Hare worked with socially isolated local adults in workshops co-led with movement practitioner Lauren Pomfret, drawing on ritual gestures and carnival traditions. The resulting movements, filmed by Oliver Sutherland, are projected onto one of the sculptures, Sunsum, bringing it to life with the energy and presence of participants.
There will be a free drop-in mask-making activity in the gallery.
This exhibition is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.
About Ashanti Hare:
Ashanti Hare is a disabled, multidisciplinary artist from Brixton, South London currently based in Plymouth, Devon. Hare graduated from Arts University Plymouth in 2022 and went on to win the CVAN Platform Graduate Award 2022 & the AUP X KARST graduate residency. They make artworks responding to local and global majority histories within the specific context of museum & institutional archives including objects & histories around religion and folklore. Hare has an ongoing interest in decolonising museum archives and platforming the influence of the above communities on British history– particularly Caribbean cultural practices, as a descendant of the Windrush Generation– through implementing traditional folkcraftmanship to create sculptural textile installations and ritual performances that reflect the embodied human experience.
Hare seeks to change the way people interact with museums and archives while also creating accessibility in contemporary art spaces for marginalised communities.
Recent commissions & exhibitions include: River That Never Rests - Iteration II for Invasion Ecology - Public performance, film & installation, 2024; Journey to Mpemba - Submerged Bodies: Mythical Reflections in South West Waters for Foreign Bodies - University of Exeter funded, sculpture, 2024; River That Never Rests - ACE & Exeter City Council funded, public performance & film, 2024; TWENTY THREE NINETEEN - Against Apartheid, 2023; Joto Se - Sculptural installation, 2022.
