At Kunsthalle Zürich, Ayo Akingbade turns her lens towards architecture, movement and the social forces that shape the spaces of everyday life.
30 September 2026
For her first institutional solo exhibition outside the United Kingdom, London-based filmmaker and artist Ayo Akingbade presents ‘Crossing‘ at Kunsthalle Zürich, bringing together two new productions with earlier works from her acclaimed film practice.
Moving between experimental documentary, fiction and personal essay, Akingbade’s films examine architecture not simply as built form, but as something experienced through bodies, communities and everyday routines. Social housing, shopping centres, factories and public spaces become sites through which histories of labour, migration, gentrification and displacement emerge.
Among the works presented is The Fist (2022), filmed at the Guinness brewery in Lagos, where the rhythms of machinery and labour reveal connections between industrial architecture, colonial histories and contemporary economic structures. Deadphant (2020) turns to London’s Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre shortly before its closure, documenting a community space on the verge of disappearance.
These works are joined by Nichtschwimmer (2026) and the newly commissioned Two Truths (2026), filmed in Zurich. Across ‘Crossing‘, movement becomes a way to read cities and consider how people inhabit, negotiate, and transform their environments.
This exhibition is on view at the Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland, from 26 September 2026 to 10 January 2027.
