Leilah Babirye transforms the imagined queer wedding into a powerful sculptural meditation on love, kinship, and survival.
21 July 2026
At the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Leilah Babirye unveils ‘Embaga ya Naki ne Naki (Wedding of Naki and Naki)’, a major new exhibition that extends her profound exploration of identity, resilience, and chosen family through an extraordinary sculptural installation. The exhibition marks a significant new chapter in the Ugandan-born, New York-based artist’s practice.
Centred on the imagined ceremony of a queer wedding, Babirye presents an ensemble of newly created ceramic sculptures, each embodying a participant in the celebration, from brides and grooms to attendants, guardians, and honoured guests. Surrounding them are monumental carved wood figures representing ancestors and elders, whose presence transforms the gallery into a space where memory, ritual, and affirmation converge.
Working with reclaimed materials including bicycle chains, gears, tyre inner tubes, salvaged wood, and found objects, Babirye reimagines discarded matter as vessels of dignity and beauty. Her practice speaks directly to histories of exclusion while celebrating the resilience of LGBTQ+ communities through acts of transformation and care. Having fled Uganda after being outed as gay, the artist continues to construct a visual language in which sculpture becomes both testimony and sanctuary.
Rich in symbolism and emotional resonance, ‘Embaga ya Naki ne Naki’ proposes belonging not as inheritance, but as something collectively imagined, lovingly assembled, and courageously defended. It is a moving affirmation of the power of art to remake both material and social worlds.
This exhibition is on view at the Fotene Demoulas Gallery at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston from 27 August 2026 to 18 January 2027.
