THE SERPENTINE GALLERY rarely puts on exhibitions that can be described as ‘mundane’. It is the most exciting and adventurous public art gallery in London. True to form, its current show (in the South gallery) is both weird and unexpected – actually, quite funky. Called “Emajendat” (i.e., ‘imagine that’), it is on until the 2^nd of March 2025. The exhibition or art installations were created by Lauren Halsey, who was born in 1987 in Los Angeles (USA), where she lives and works.

Ms Halsey has created a series of fantasy landscapes that reflect the backyard culture of the part of Los Angeles – South Central – where was brought up and still lives. The exhibition’s leaflet explained that she:

“… has developed a distinct visual language deeply rooted in South Central Los Angeles where her family has lived for generations. Through objects and installations, Halsey archives and remixes the changing signs and symbols of her environment, gathering physical and graphic material from her neighbourhood. In her work Halsey merges past, present and future via her interest in iconography connected to the African diaspora, Black and queer icons and architecture. Halsey cites the collective sonic and visual layering associated with funk music as the blueprint for her approach to making, traversing time and drawing on a wide range of sources.”

 The extraordinary environments she has created in the various spaces within the Serpentine have a humorous dreamlike quality, and at the same time contain her comments on the social culture of Los Angeles. These comments and her message as described in the gallery’s leaflet were lost on me, but I enjoyed the visual impact and creativity of what I saw. From a purely aesthetic point of view, this extraordinary exhibition is like the proverbial ‘breath of fresh air’.