In the exhibition Weerhoud, you can look forward to entering Igshaan Adams’ sensuous and poetic universe of delicately woven tapestries and sculptural dust clouds made from beads, shells, rope, pearls, silk, silver chains and much more. 

The exhibition presents works from 2014 to the present, including one of Adams’ largest dust cloud installations to date, which like the exhibition is entitled Weerhoud. The word is Afrikaans and translates to withheld in English. 

Born in 1982 in the formerly segregated suburb of Bonteheuwel on the outskirts of Cape Town, Adams grew up in a complex identity context under apartheid. Drawing on his own experiences, Adams explores the impact of trauma on the human psyche and the healing power of movement. 

“In a profoundly poetic way, Igshaan Adams encourages his audience to reflect on the struggles we ourselves have faced, are currently facing, or have overcome. Adams’ works are powerful and express a deep understanding of the human capacity to adapt and resist adversity through movement and spirituality,” says Museum Director at ARoS, Rebecca Matthews.  

Healing dance and Sufism 
Adams is particularly interested in how dance and movement can help strengthen human resilience and agency towards forces that hold us back. This is evident in his new 6.5 meter long tapestry created from a dance print generated from a series of workshops with Garage Dance Ensemble in 2022. 

“The main work in the exhibition is made using dancers who moved intuitively across a large canvas placed on a sheet of wet paint. The empty spaces on the canvas emphasize what isn't visible or accessible to us, underlining how we tend to fill in gaps with our own prejudices. As such, themes of absence and unspoken identity markers permeate the exhibition,” says Igshaan Adams. 

Adams is inspired by Sufism, a spiritual and ascetic branch of Islam that emphasises an inner search for God, often through dance and meditation. For Adams, movement is a way of accessing a deeper spiritual state and a healing cure for the pain that lives on in himself and many others in the wake of the apartheid system. 

In 2018, Adams was awarded the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award. His work is part of the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. He has also presented his work at the 2022 Venice Biennale and the 2023 Bienal de São Paulo. 

Igshaan Adams – Weerhoud is on view from 18 January – 3 August 2025. 

The exhibition is created in collaboration with The Hepworth Wakefield and realised at ARoS by curator Maria Kappel Blegvad with generous support from the Knud Højgaard’s Foundation, Stibo Foundation, and Per and Lise Aarsleff’s Foundation.  
 
The attached press images may be used freely with due credit.  

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For further information, and information about the opening and press view, please contact:  
ARoS Press and Communication  
presse@aros.dk 
+45 61904883