Never The Same River: Migration and Identity at Ford Foundation Gallery

Key facts

• Exhibition 'Never The Same River' is on view at the Ford Foundation Gallery, 320 East 43rd Street, New York, through December 5, 2026.
• Curated by Dexter Wimberly, the show features six artists: KV Duong, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Brendan Fernandes, Elliot & Erick Jiménez, Anoushka Mirchandani, and Edison Peñafiel.
• The title references Heraclitus's concept that no one steps into the same river twice, symbolizing the instability of identity.
• KV Duong's 'Family Portrait' (2026) uses latex to explore diaspora and Asian identity, referencing Vietnam's colonial rubber industry.
• Adama Delphine Fawundu's works include 'Ngewo Whispers' and 'Vibrations from the Deep', filmed across Nigeria, Congo, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cuba, Brazil, and the United States.
• Brendan Fernandes's 'Still Release II' (2019) uses a rocking chair as a sculpture and performance device to explore bodily control.
• Elliot & Erick Jiménez's 'Where Fertile Land Grows' (2026) combines photography, a nineteenth-century church bench, and ornate framing, drawing on Lucumí traditions and Catholic imagery.
• Anoushka Mirchandani's paintings are informed by her grandmothers' forced displacement during the 1947 Partition of India.
• Edison Peñafiel's 'MARE MAGNVM: Passage' presents masked figures in perpetual movement across a projected sea, refusing a narrative of departure and arrival.
• The exhibition is accompanied by a digital guide available through Bloomberg Connects.