Nnena Kahlu - Index
Morag Kiel - With You For Life
Morag Kiel - With You For Life
Both exhibitions took place at Arcadia Missa, London.
5th March - 26 April 2026.
Nnene Kalu - Index
In Nnene Kalu’s exhibition, there are many large drawings on paper, framed and hung on the white walls. The drawings are made in a continuous circular egg shape. They are part of a series called Vortex Drawing. Every drawing appears the same but is in different colours, some reddish-brown, some blue-green, using chalk, pastels, pencil and pen.
GLENN: Nnena Kalu’s show reminds me of stuff at The Gate. The way she works is similar to the way people work here. Like Jackie's art [one of the artists at the gate] she does the same thing over and over.
LABAKE: Or Like Wayne as well, but Wayne does change. He talks to me and I don't know what he's saying. I want to understand sign language to talk to him.
GLENN: You don't need to be good at reading or writing or speaking to be good at art. My friend is a dancer and does drag and they’re blind. I don't know how he does it. Nnena’s work reminds me of Wizard of Oz, you know when the house goes into the air, or ‘Stranger Things’ when they're closing the gate. I like the colours, the blue one looks like a 9.
Still from Stranger Things, American television series, 2016 - 2019.
L to R: Nnena Kalu,Vortex Drawing 40 and 41, 2018, Chalk pastel, chalk pen, pencil and pen on paper, framed 141 x 116.2 x 5 cm (55 1/2 x 45 3/4 x 2 inches). Photos: Simon.
Nnena Kalu, Vortex drawing 18, 2018, Chalk pastel, chalk pen, pencil and pen on paper, framed 158.2 x 116.2 x 5 cm (62 1/4 x 45 3/4 x 2 inches). Photo: Labake.
Morag Kiel - With You For Life
GLENN: Morag's art reminds me of the stuff people make at The Gate too.
SIMON: Morag Kiel…artist. She used to work here a few years ago. We would watch videos on Wednesday afternoons with the man who used to work here, Arlo.
Her exhibition is an installation featuring sculptures, video and painting.
In Prototype, two mannequin hands are holding a telephone from wayback. They’re coming out of a globe made out of a jigsaw puzzle. Cables hold the hands and phone, sitting on a pile of magazines on a plinth in the middle of the room.
LABAKE: The hands are separate from the body. A phone is in the hand. It's different from a smartphone but it's used for the same thing; to call people. A hand in the world on the phone. If you need help in the war.
Morag Keil, Prototype, 2026, Magazines, mannequin hands, puzzle pieces, cables, phone, resin, acrylic and wood 148 x 30.5 x 28 cm (58 1/4 x 12 x 11 inches). Photos: Labake.
In House, two mannequins stand holding hands through cables. The cables connect the two: The man with a house on his head, and a child with an action camera on their head. Ready to go.
GLENN: The man with the little boy/girl. The man had a house on his head, the child had a camera on their head. This was cool, I've never seen art like that before. It reminds me of the saying “There's a man in the house”. Whats that mean anyway? But what if there’s no man in the house? Or no house? Sometimes the older sibling becomes the man in the house or the youngest one....
LABAKE: Who wears the trousers? I didn't know if it was a man or woman. I thought it looked like Morag because it’s the kind of clothes she used to wear when coming to work. That's how I remember her…Marissa's phone was ringing the whole time we were at the show.
Morag Kiel, House, 2026, mannequin, clothes, plastic dolls house, wood, cables and camcorder 200 x 102 x 65 cm (78 3/4 x 40 1/8 x 25 5/8 inches). Photos: Simon.
In 5 years Old, a child mannequin has a videocamera on its head, a projector is inside the camera projecting video onto a square coming out of the wall. There’s a wire coming out of the ankle.
SIMON: There's a bit sticking out…pieces were sticking out.
LABAKE: There were video clips playing off the projector. A film showing people inside…running around…I think there was someone giving birth. There was something weird. I don’t know what it was, something red.
Morag Keil, 5 Years Old, 2026, Mannequin, clothing, camcorder, projector and single-channel video, 111 x 32 x 30 cm (43 3/4 x 12 5/8 x 11 3/4 inches). Photo: Simon.
In TV, two child mannequins are in communication. One looks like a toddler, the other 5 or 6. The big one has an action camera on its head, the small one has a television head with videos playing. The big one wears a backpack, holding a palette of paint in one hand and a paint brush in the other, sharing it with the little one.
DUANE: The big one with the action camera looks like it's recording the little one.
LABAKE: Two children, they look like siblings, they look like they're doing art.
GLENN: They look like geeks. They have a little computer on their head. Are they talking about the future and what they want to do?
Morag Keil, TV, 2026, Mannequin, clothing, camcorder, TV, projector, paint brush, plastic palette and single-channel video, 108 x 86 x 37 cm (42 1/2 x 33 7/8 x 14 5/8 inches). Photos: Labake.
In 2 Years Old, a small Telehead mannequin sits in the corner of the room, on a pile of magazines. It's wearing a nice beige t-shirt, yellow leggings, grey trainers, pink socks. Next to it is a sculpture of a rotting apple inside a ball.
LABAKE/MARY: Kid in the corner, a child sitting on magazines. Maybe they're in the corner because they've been naughty like in supernanny…
Morag Keil, 2 Years Old, 2026, Mannequin, clothing, television, magazines, apple and resin 74 x 49.5 x 51 cm (29 1/8 x 19 1/2 x 20 1/8 inches). Photos: Labake.
LABAKE: Maybe they’re all one big family…imagining a single dad and 4 children.
Finally, Inside the gallery there’s a medium sized flat screen TV embedded in a wall called Bubble. It shows the live street scene outside filmed using a CCTV camera. The screen has a plastic lens on top in the shape of a warped hemisphere distorting the view outside. From the outside of the gallery, through the window, you see the back of the wall and the screen with a small CCTV camera on top recording you.
LABAKE: In ‘Bubble’, she’s trying to hold us hostage with a CCTV image of the outside in. Inside out. Upside down.
JASON: I enjoyed the screen to the outside. It was my favourite bit.
Morag Keil, Bubble, 2026, CCTV camera, TV, plastic, chipboard, MDF and paint, Dimensions variable.
Photo: Labake.
LABAKE: The show reminds me of ‘Back to the Future’, Doc’s mind reading device that failed to work. I think her art is telling me that maybe in the future when we see her again we’ll see her in Robotic form…Technology In medical terms is awesome but I think we rely on our phones too much…making us absent.
GLENN: There's a lot of technology in the room, if you're into a lot of networks and filming then you'd be into the show.
When we were little in the 90s there weren't a lot of cameras. All the communications and the Internet is always changing now. I'm not an I.T. person, it can be handy if we need to look at something important, but everyone is hooked on it now, people using their phones. I'm not using my phone. I use googlemaps, but I'm not on it all the time. People are not watching where they're going. I dunno if it's going to get worse or not in the future as I want to have children (somehow).
LABAKE: We weren't happy about the stairs in the gallery. Some people are not good with stairs because of their mobility and the lifts were broken. I don't think they took disability into consideration, maybe they should’ve put Nnena on the ground floor and Morag on the top or had the shows separately. For that reason we give both shows a 5 out of 10.
