Badru Temitayo. We are gods 

Winner Audience Award Textile Biennial 2023. Images of Power

2024 DEC 1 - 2025 MAR 2

For the exhibition Badru Temitayo. We are gods, the Nigerian artist Badru Temitayo Taofeek (1983) draws inspiration from African history, myths and folklore. Temitayo is the winner of the Textile Biennial 2023. Images of Power Audience Award and in this first European solo exhibition he shows portraits and installations deeply rooted in Yoruba culture.

 The title of the exhibition We are gods is an ode to the Yoruba worldview. The Yoruba live in the southwest of Nigeria and eastern Benin and have their own language and religion. The Yoruba faith recognises a supreme god and 401 smaller orisas (gods or spirits) sent to help humanity succeed on earth and to guide them spiritually. Similar to the Textile Biennale, a selection of hand-embroidered portraits of Temitayo's family will be on display. The colours and attributes in these intimate portraits are all symbolic and reflect the richness of Yoruba culture.

 

 

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Dina Danish. Protocols and other Formal Agreements
March 9 - June 8, 2025

Dina Danish. Protocols and other Formal Agreements is the first solo museum exhibition in the Netherlands by Egyptian artist Dina Danish (1981, Paris, FR). The combined works of mainly paper and textile enter into a dialogue with each other, as well as with the heritage collection of Museum Rijswijk.
Danish questions symbols, gestures and our relationship with language in a humorous way. She depicts forms of miscommunication in writings and videos, including tongue twisters, chewing gum and many repetitions.
Danish is fascinated by the fixed pattern through which world leaders are depicted on official occasions, such as signing agreements and moments of shaking hands in front of the press. She captures these fleeting, interchangeable images with a very labor-intensive technique. The works, which are shaped liked medieval banners, are made by craftsmen in Cairo who specialize in making the most refined and decorative tents (khayamiya).

Danish's work is presented in combination with objects from the subcollections of Museum Rijswijk, such as the Peace of Rijswijk of 1697, in which protocols played a very important role. And in relation to the language and poems of the 19th century writer Hendrik Tollens, the last resident of the building in which the museum is housed. In Protocols and other Formal Agreements, Dina Danish shows that the current (visual) language has not only become very universal but also stands in a long tradition.