In her curatorial essay, Helena Reckitt explains that Maheke’s installation was “originally shown at the Diaspora Pavillion at the Venice Biennale in 2017,” and is “dedicated to Pateh Sabally, a twenty-two-year-old Gambian refugee who drowned after jumping from the Rialto Bridge in 2017. While some onlookers heckled Sabally with racist abuse, and filmed his death on their mobile phones, others threw lifebuoys, though none jumped in to save him.” The installation consists of four block white quotations printed onto lightweight curtains. The quotations were pulled from Langston Hughes’ short 1925 poem Suicide’s Note:

The calm,

Cool face of the river

Asked me for a kiss.

The poem’s brevity mirrors the quickness with which one’s life can be taken. In this case, death is represented as a harmless “kiss” with the river. The silent repose of death in Hughes’ poem is in stark juxtaposition to Sabally’s helpless thrashing, as locals and tourists crowded around him, watching and jeering while he struggled to draw his last breath. Considering Sabally’s background as a Black refugee, the reference to water in the work takes on several layers—as Maheke states, it is “at once a life source, a lifeline, and a threat.”Paul Maheke, “Get Up, Stand Up Now: Q&A with artist Paul Maheke,” interview by Kemi Alemoru, Somerset House /(2019/). https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/get-up-stand-up-now-q-a-with-artist-paul-maheke-somerset-house/vQKCOZbjXS6NJg?hl=en

It denotes both a risky migratory passage and a possible channel to safety and security, while also harkening to the importance of water as a necessity to life. As the wind blows against the airy curtains, Maheke’s installation takes on a resonance with the tides and flows of bodies of water, and communicates an atmosphere of solemn emotive reflection. The haunting stanzas of Suicide’s Note float with the light tulle fabric, reminders of human relations with water and at once of Sabally’s tragic fate.