Venice, 6 May 2026
AFRICA: Seen & Heard commissioned Venetian artist Gualti, an internationally renowned maker of contemporary jewellery (wearable sculpture) and textile body adornments, to create a series of sculptural “Magic Sphere” earrings for MAGIC: In Minor Keys — The Dinner as Painting’s Second Body, an immersive culinary art composition conceived and creatively directed by Winifred O. Adeyemi as part of Water Ways (2026) Activation III during the Venice Biennale preview programme.
Developed in dialogue with AFRICA: Seen & Heard’s edible pigment practice and the evolving MAGIC body of work by Artist-in-Resonance A. R. Turner, the earrings reveal colour only through shifts of light and perspective. Their interior foils were curated in three symbolic tonalities:
Yellow-Gold referenced sunlight across lagoon and desert worlds, the yellow-gold aura of charisma, intellect, and divine connection, while quietly invoking Oshun’s sacred foodways of honey, sweetness, fertility, and prosperity across the Afro-Atlantic diaspora. The tone also immortalised the Venetian launch of Caribbean arts foundation and digital platform ABIRAC Contemporary.
Pink-Copper responded to the Belt of Venus phenomenon over the Venetian Lagoon, where twilight’s atmospheric pink arch mirrors the flamingos now inhabiting the lagoon wetlands. The tone also echoed the pomegranate pişmaniye garnish of The Carmine Threshold, a culinary receipt translating painting concept into edible experience by evoking flamingo feathers suspended in movement.
Red transmuted cochineal and honoured the fugitive Red Lake pigment moving across time: from Tintoretto’s Renaissance masterpiece The Wedding Feast at Cana, to ASH Culinaria’s Sancta Rubra cocktail and Turner’s forthcoming lagoon-focused work.
The commission formed part of a wider interdisciplinary exchange between jewellery, culinary art, pigment, ritual, and sensory perception — extending Venice’s intangible cultural heritage into a New Atlantic World™ dialogue through colour, atmosphere, and light.
Creative Direction, Curatorial Framework & Conceptual Language © Winifred O. Adeyemi / AFRICA: Seen & Heard
Photos by AFRICA: Seen & Heard / L. Bryan / Biemmezeta / Gualti
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