Olalekan Jeyifous's First Solo Museum Show at Walker Arts Center Reimagines the Mississippi

The Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis will open "Olalekan Jeyifous: Hydricosmic Litanies" on August 6, 2026, marking the artist's first solo museum exhibition. Jeyifous, winner of the Silver Lion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, presents the Mississippi River not as natural scenery but as a record of change, displacement, identity, and belief. The exhibition draws inspiration from Ben Okri's novel "The Famished Road," incorporating mythological figures connected to African heritage and diaspora. Visitors enter a speculative river settlement outside fixed historical time and place—neither post-apocalyptic nor paradise. The Mississippi functions as both subject and organizing system. Curator Taylor Jasper praised Jeyifous's breadth across art, architecture, and design without losing sight of political and human stakes. The show runs through January 3, 2027.