Inside Sokari London’s “Awake” - The Virtual Christmas Installation
- ibienehart7
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
We’re closing the year with Awake, an immersive Christmas installation by Sokari London, inspired by the spirit of emancipation and liberation of Africa. It serves as a call to action, to recognize our heritage, understand our journey, and step forward into the future with strong intention.
From 4th December 2025 to 6th January 2026, we’re inviting you to step into a digital, cinematic space where art, sound, and storytelling come together to tell one shared story: Africa’s. It’s a story we all know in different ways. One that’s powerful, layered, and often told for us instead of by us. Awake turns that around.
Through four interconnected chapters, visitors move from connecting to African identity, to our translation of African spirituality, and then we confront the ongoing movement and migration that has challenged and reshaped African identity. Finally, we invite you to take action, to be intentional, and to embrace your deep roots.
Chapter 1 - Identity
The journey opens with a question that every African has carried at some point: Who am I?
This chapter doesn’t try to simplify that answer. Instead, it celebrates everything that makes being African so full, the beauty, the contradictions, the humour, the pain, the pride.
It’s about reclaiming the right to define ourselves, in our own voices, through our own lens.
In this space, you’ll find reflections of home and diaspora, of memory and invention. You’ll feel the weight of heritage but also the joy of individuality. Because African identity isn’t fixed. It shifts, expands, adapts, and that’s what makes us powerful.
Chapter 2 - Spirituality & Roots
This chapter takes an even more reflective turn. Here, we explore the role spirituality plays in African life, beyond religion. It’s about the everyday ways people stay connected to their roots, their values, and the generations that came before them.
African spirituality is often misunderstood or reduced to cosmology, but it’s much more than that. Cosmology maps the universe and its forces, showing the structure of the spiritual, ancestral, human, and natural worlds.
In many African traditions, for example, Yoruba cosmology describes a layered universe where humans, ancestors, and deities coexist and influence each other, with spiritual energy flowing between them. Spirituality, on the other hand, is how we live within that world: how we honor ancestors, carry out rituals, care for communities, make decisions, and find meaning in everyday life. In short, cosmology is the map, and spirituality is the journey.
In the virtual room, this idea comes to life with the Ancestral Wall. It’s a simple but powerful reminder of lineage: where we come from, who shaped us, and how those connections continue to influence us today.
In this space, you’ll feel the presence of those who came before us, the guidance they offer, and the ways their wisdom still shapes our lives.
A Story for All of Us
These opening chapters are the foundation of Awake. They remind us that before we can move forward, we must know who we are and where we come from.
The journey will continue in the next blog with Movement and Action, led by artists Sinenkosi and Anthony, who will carry the story outward, into the diaspora and into the future. But for now, we begin here: with identity, with spirit, with home.
This December, come see, feel, and be part of something that speaks to every African heart,wherever in the world it may be.
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