In 2026, Shenece will be developing a new body of work that sonically and kinetically explores the legacies of Black agricultural and environmental practices.
Shenece Oretha, ‘Studio Notes’ (2020). Image courtesy of Shenece Oretha.
Using Poaceae (the grass family) as a botanical starting point, Shenece will experiment with envisaging new sculptural forms that will transform the exhibition space into an instrument in its own right. As these new hybrid forms activate the gallery sonically, the work will begin to draw out the otherwise untraceable knowledge that the grasses carry with them.
This exhibition forms part of the wider spatio-poetic research that our Associate Curator Amrita is currently conducting. From innovative speaker systems and instruments made from organic matter to other playback technologies, she is interested in collaborating with artists who imagine their own ‘carriers’ of sound.
Over the last few years, Shenece has been developing an embodied creative practice that intertwines sound, sculpture-making and cultivation as a way to re-forge our relationship to the land.
This process began in 2021 when Shenece underwent a year-long residency on an allotment in North London, which provided the conceptual grounding for their 2022 solo exhibition ‘Ah So It Go, Ah No So It Go, Go So!’ at Cubitt Gallery. The show explored the poetry and complexity of the language of horticulture and cultivation in relation to Black diaspora, migration and culture.
Shenece Oretha, ‘Ah So It Go, Ah No So It Go, Go So!’ at Cubit, London, 2022.
Shenece Oretha, ‘Ah So It Go, Ah No So It Go, Go So!’ at Cubit, London, 2022.
Currently, Shenece is on a year-long Production Residency at Glasgow Print Studio, where they have been experimenting with the haptic qualities of rice grains. The resulting exhibition, ‘Some Rhythms Persist’ (a duo show with artist Camara Taylor), displays innovative techniques such as molasses-based steel etching and rice printing, furthering Shenece’s development of a material language that brings together explorations of Black histories, sound, land and industry.
Shenece Oretha, ‘Easily Mistaken for Jumbie’, Glasgow Print Studio, 2026.
The upcoming collaboration with Grand Union will enable Shenece to shift this research further into the sculptural realm, unlocking the mobilising potential of sound and offering embodied connections to the land. Beginning the research process at GU’s canalside Common Field, situated at the intersection of empire and industry, this project will also consider how Black spatial practices can be employed to remediate the land itself as well as our relationship with it.
Shenece Oretha, ‘Soil: Common Ground’ Podcast for Somerset House, 2025.
About the Artist
Shenece Oretha (b. Montserrat) is a multidisciplinary artist currently listening from London. Their practice is invested in the mobilising potential of sound and the animation of Black agricultural and environmental legacies. Oretha’s works negotiate the physicality of sound and plants to sculpt a space for collectivity, poly-vocality and emphasise listening as an embodied practice. Converging installations, performance, text, print and sculpture to shape moments of ceremony and collective action.
Oretha’s solo shows include Tolled, The Hepworth Wakefield (2023), Ah So It Go, Ah No So It Go, Go So!, Cubitt Gallery (2022), Called to Respond, Cell Project Space (2020) and TESTING GROUNDS, Cafe OTO Project Space (2019). Group exhibitions include, 20/20 Futures, LCF (2025), Brent Biennial, London (2022), SURVEY II, G39, Site Gallery and Jerwood Arts (2021), Cinders, Sinuous and Supple, Les Urbaines, Switzerland (2019) and PRAISE N PAY IT/ PULL UP, COME INTO THE RISE, South London Gallery, London, (2018).
Recent performances have been held at Tate Modern (2025), Café Oto London (2025) and London Contemporary music festival (2024). In 2024 Shenece was a UK associate at Delfina Foundation and in 2025 Shenece was an awardee of the third edition of the LOEWE FOUNDATION / Studio Voltaire Award.