Rooms? 1, 2, 3: Forgotten Memories of my life as a weed is a collaboration between artist Lisa C Soto and artist and designer Gershon Gidisu. Rooms? 1,2,3 is the beginning of a series of exhibitions that invites artists to intervene in a number of 8x8x8 foot structures made of 12 wooden planks (lines) and metal joints. The artist is invited to almost start from the principle of Gestalt with these 12 lines composed in the form of a cube. There are no walls. This comes to play as a means of extending the boundaries of the exhibition space and exhibition making, touching on subjects of place, transcendence, publicness and mobility within the context of exhibition making and exhibition design. These spaces reimagine the exhibition space and question what the exhibition space could become.

Gidisu’s interest in composition and characteristics of materials and the structure of things, experimenting with different types of materials and techniques is reflected in his most recent series. He states: “The exhibition as a structure can become an idea, it doesn’t have to be physical, it is adaptable, it can take the form of a skein, it can expand, it can be mobile, it can be a collapsible, it can be seen as a placeless place.”

The collaboration with Soto is the first iteration of the Room? series. Soto created three experimental worlds in the making of Forgotten Memories of my life as a weed, engaging with materialities – such as plants, medicine bottles, vials, branches, nests, hemp rope, mirrors, mesh cloth, and a cabinet – that charge the space with their own energies, their own proposals. The three cubes are set in the Botanical Gardens of the KNUST University campus. Soto engages with elements of nature not only as the subjects or materials but in collaboration.

Soto questions how will the non-human beings in the botanical gardens engage with these worlds? How will the human body move in response to what is seen in this environment, to what is heard, to what is sensed? What tensions could arise between the human body and the materialities situated in these spaces? As the wood planks themselves became integral to the materials, transforming themselves into new holistic beings, could there be a merging of these diverse non-human and human entities?