Torkwase Dyson: Akua

Torkwase Dyson’s Akua is a large, open pavilion with an immersive multi-channel soundscape. Visitors may enter and experience recorded sounds moving across eight speakers, including layered conversations from Black archives, nature field recordings, and music. For Dyson (b. 1973, Chicago), sound is a physical vibration that can connect our bodies to our surroundings. The title Akua is inspired by the name of a family member; Akua means “born on Wednesday” in West African Akan tradition.

Dyson’s multilayered sonic composition explores the idea of “breath as geography.” The artist proposes that the spaces between words — subtle breaths, ums, pauses — can carry memories of specific places. She asks, “what can the space between words and silence tell us about land, water, infrastructure, and migration?” Surrounded by grand waterways and architectural landmarks, Akua invites audiences into a space of contemplation and imagination, grounded in the landscape beneath and encircling us.

Torkwase Dyson: Akua is curated by Public Art Fund Senior Curator Melanie Kress with Assistant Curator Jenée-Daria Strand.

Torkwase Dyson describes herself as a painter working across multiple mediums to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. She frequently creates compositions of three “hypershapes”—a rectangular box, a triangle, and a trapezoid. Each form references a historical person who escaped confinement through a space of that shape: for example, Harriet Jacobs, who spent seven years in a trapezoidal attic crawlspace. As representations of spaces used for escape, migration, and transformation, Dyson’s hypershapes embody a Black experience defined by constant shapeshifting and change.

Dyson has been lauded with major outdoor commissions at Desert X, Palm Desert, California (2023); Counterpublic in St Louis, Missouri (2023); and the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the 2024 Whitney Biennial. 

Dyson studied Sociology, Social Work, and Fine Arts at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, and received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, in 1999 and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut, in 2003. She has held one-artist exhibitions at Graham Foundation, Chicago (2018); The Drawing Center, New York (2018); New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana (2020); Serpentine Pavilion, Serpentine Galleries, London (2021); Hall Art Foundation, Schloss Derneburg, Germany (2021); Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri (2023); and ‘T’ Space, Rhinebeck, New York (2023); among others. Dyson was also part of the 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021); 12th Liverpool Biennial, England (2023); 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art (2023); and the 81st Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2024). Dyson will create the conceptual design for Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the Costume Institute’s Spring 2025 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Dyson’s work is held in notable public collections including The Art Institute of Chicago; Hall Art Foundation, Reading, Vermont; Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Long Museum, Shanghai; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Massachusetts; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri; and The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, among others.