'Mami Wata' Exhibition Celebrates Black Spirituality and Survival

When art curator Storm Ascher created Superposition Gallery, she had a mission in mind: that the gallery remain “in flux.”

Superposition is a nomadic gallery, meaning that it does not have one singular exhibition space. Instead, its exhibits are site-specific. Since its inaugural show in 2018 in Brooklyn, Superposition has held exhibitions across the country, from New York, to California, to Florida.

“We really like to be site specific with where the exhibitions are because art galleries are a catalyst for gentrification, and artists are always priced out first,” Ascher said in a recent interview. “When it comes to an arts district that’s developed because of all the beautification, artists end up not being able to even enjoy it themselves.”

Ascher said Superposition’s site-specificity and lack of brick-and-mortar base actively works to combat that very model by “bringing culture back to places that have already been fully erased.”

This summer, Superposition opened its most recent exhibit, “Mami Wata,” at the Eastville Historical Society’s Heritage House Museum in Sag Harbor. This is Superposition’s third exhibition with Eastville, and it will run until November.

In African folklore, Mami Wata is an extremely powerful and revered spirit, associated with water, and often depicted as a mermaid or similar sea creature.

“I have been really interested in different Nigerian traditions and mythologies, because it’s something that I think a lot of people who descend from the slave trade are very interested in,” Ascher said when asked about the choice to highlight Mami Wata. “Doing work to find out what exactly ancestrally connects us all is something that I do with my art.”

Ascher said that after dealing with a traumatic event last year, she was looking to stories and traditions of these goddesses and spirits to guide her.

“I was trying to think of all these different ways that some type of deity or womanly figure was helping me through something very traumatic that I wasn’t prepared for, but that also helped me embrace all the womanly parts of me.”

Ascher added that she’s not usually one to label things as feminist, but for this show, it felt important to do so, in tandem with acknowledging the failing health care system that specifically targets women of color.

“It was important to have the show not be called ‘Mother of Waters’. It’s ‘Mami Wata’ for a reason,” Ascher said, the goal being to explore these themes through a non-Western lens.

“Mami Wata is a force,” Ascher continued, “not good or bad, just all-encompassing. It’s sobering, like the ocean.”

In 2023, Ascher founded the Hamptons Black Arts Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocacy, acquisition development and infrastructure operations for Black institutions on the East End.

“We have eight artworks that are part of the permanent collection of the Hamptons Black Arts Council, and we’ll be able to use these for programming for years to come,” Ascher said, adding that all the artists who donated work to the collection are East End locals. “These people know us and want us there — they want the exposure, they want to be remembered. And that’s what counts. We’re filling the space intentionally.”

For Ascher, being able to uphold the legacy of the East End’s extensive history, both artistically and as a place with such deep roots in Black history and community, is gratifying and fulfilling.

“I think a lot of these stories were erased intentionally,” she said. “Eastville was one of the stops on the Green Book, which was passed out to travelers back in the day during Jim Crow. Knowing that someone like Lena Horne stayed at the Heritage House, and even knowing that Sanford Biggers lives up the road, that’s history in itself being made right now.”

In recent interviews, two participating local artists, Michael A. Butler and Renee Cox, expressed excitement to be a part of this exhibit, and passion for its significance.

Butler, who has served on the Eastville Historical Society’s board as recording secretary, vice president and president, said that he has “A deep affinity for the organization” and does “as much as possible to support its endeavors.”

Butler’s piece is titled “Mother of Waters,” and was created specifically for this exhibit. However, Butler said that before being invited to show in this exhibit, he did not know who Mami Wata was, or what she represented.

“Numerous hours of research were undertaken to obtain a broad scope of the various manifestations of Mami Wata including African, European and Asian influences,” he said.

In explaining the creation of his piece, Butler said that from the beginning, he knew that instead of using a regular square canvas, he would use one shaped like an oval, so as to “provide a sense of fluidity and motion, rather than a static square.” He added that the piece includes an altar dedicated to Mami Wata, and a priest and three priestesses, along with two sea snakes, one of the ways that Mami Wata is said to manifest.

Butler explained that the figure in the piece represents Mami Wata “as a being of the ‘new’ world, as transported here through the horrors of the Middle Passage. She is seated upon a pile of rocks holding the traditional mirror but in the background is a spit of land evocative of nearby Barcelona Neck.

“A subtitle could conceivably be ‘What World Is This?’” he continued.

Renee Cox, a longtime Springs resident who was a student at the Tuller School at Maycroft in North Haven, was first approached by Ascher last year about the exhibit.

“It has been so inspiring to pour back into a community I hold near and dear through the arts,” she said.

Cox’s piece is entitled “Queen Nanny Portrait,” a photograph representing Queen Nanny of the Maroons; the only female national hero in Jamaica, who, Cox said, “encompasses all of the characteristics of Mami Wata.”

For Cox, those characteristics are multi-faceted and personal.

“Mami Wata is a lived presence, a fluid feminine deity that mirrors my own creative and cultural multiplicity,” she said. “To me, she is the past and the future, water and fire, myth and memory. Mami Wata is like me in spirit, story and my art. I love her.”

“Mami Wata,” curated by Storm Ascher (Superposition Gallery and Hamptons Black Arts Council), opened on June 19 and runs until November 30 at the Eastville Community Historical Society Heritage House, 139 Hampton Street, Sag Harbor. For more information, visit eastvillehistorical.org.