Rele Los Angeles is proud to present Social fabrics: magic and memories – a dual exhibition featuring the extraordinary textile-based works of Shinique Smith and Marcellina Akpojotor, curated by Rele LA Director Jac Forbes. Coinciding with Frieze Los Angeles, this show marks a momentous milestone for Rele as it celebrates its 10th anniversary, continuing its commitment to cross-continental dialogue and the amplification of African and Diasporic voices in contemporary art.

Lagos-based Marcellina Akpojotor employs a distinctive collage technique, pulling apart and reconfiguring boldly patterned fragments of Ankara fabric. Using found material sourced from local tailors, she examines the histories and lived experiences of women, creating works that honor intergenerational resilience, identity formation, and the preservation of cultural heritage. Her practice engages with textiles as mnemonic devices—connecting past and present, old wisdom and new knowledge—and speaks to the crucial, often undervalued, labor of women in shaping memory and community.

Smith, based in Los Angeles, is recognized for her monumental fabric sculptures and dynamic collaged paintings comprising vintage textiles, garments, ribbons, and found objects. Incorporating materials collected over the last twenty years - from family, friends, and travels, Smith’s totemic work with the magical and the mundane interrogates themes of belonging, social ritual, and the significance of repurposed materials; exploring how once cherished things that are discarded or considered surplus retain personal and collective history.

Both Smith and Akpojotor unite in a vision for Social fabrics: magic and memories that underscores the potent ways textiles serve as conduits of ancestral knowledge, cultural histories, and imaginative possibility. By using the intimacy of their handwork and employing textiles as cultural signifiers they speak to individual and collective memory, the formation of identity, and historical continuity.

This presentation features sculpture from Smith's recently celebrated solo exhibition Parade at The Ringling Museum—including Mitumba deity II, displayed on her grandmother’s dresser. Social fabrics: magic and memory highlights shared themes from both artists of women’s resilience, and the entanglement of the personal and the political, all woven together through the fabric’s capacity to memorialize. As the artists tie, stitch, collage, paint, dye, and layer their textiles, they pay homage to lineages of labor while acknowledging cloth’s power to unite people across continents and generations.

Since its inception in Lagos in 2015, Rele Gallery has devoted itself to reshaping the global narrative of contemporary African art. Marking Rele Gallery’s 10th anniversary, Social fabrics: magic and memories exemplifies the gallery’s continued mission to champion cutting-edge African and Diasporic art, expand cross-cultural narratives, and foster meaningful engagement with local and international communities.