Great Hall Exhibition Series Fall 2025

List of Works

1. Tong Lengu (Eggs of Beauty), 2024
obuso (raffia) and ensansa (palm leaves)
237 cm × 70 cm × 45 cm, dimensions variable

Woven strips of palm leaf raffia, in both natural and dyed colors, are looped and sewn together to create a tangled, cascading form. By suspending her structures from above, Kerunen boldly asserts their commanding presence in the space. To make her works, the artist collaborates with women in Uganda and across the Great Lakes region of East Africa. The natural fibers and weaving techniques featured in this sculpture are typically found in functional items produced by women and retailed as “craft.” Her work counters the idea that these traditions belong only to the realm of utility, revealing the knowledge, technique, and cultural memory held in women’s labor.

2. Poluutingu (The heavens have lifted her up), 2023
obuso (raffia), byayi (banana fibre), mutuba (barkcloth), and ensansa (palm leaves)
204.5 cm × 134.6 cm × 106.2 cm

A woven base of banana fiber anchors a cascade of interlaced brown barkcloth, beige raffia, and purple palm-leaf strips. This work, like Nyingati, features olubugo, or barkcloth, sourced from the bark of mutuba trees (ficus natalensis). In many kingdoms of central and eastern Africa, barkcloth was historically associated with royal and ritual authority. It was used for coronation garments, royal robes, and in the preparation of royal tombs. Unlike Kerunen’s other materials, barkcloth is predominantly produced by men, who harvest the tree’s inner bark and soften it with mallets into a pliable texture. Kerunen is attentive to the seasonal rhythms and ecological origins of her materials, choosing fibers that could, in principle, return to the earth after their display. Through her engagement with barkcloth in a context shaped by women’s labor and presence, the artist invites an interpretation that reconsiders its patriarchal lineage, gesturing toward a practice rooted in care and interdependence.

3. Nyingati (Someone’s Wife), 2023
obuso (raffia), mutuba (bark cloth), ensansa (palm leaves)
245.1 cm × 125.1 cm × 125.1 cm

A raffia basket crowns a suspended twisting form composed of brown barkcloth and a checkered, multicolored textile. Kerunen describes her process as “depatronising” materials: reclaiming what is typically undervalued as “mere” women’s domestic labor and transforming them into sites of authorship and strength. In Uganda, women often kneel while weaving or presenting baskets—–a traditional posture of respect that Kerunen resists. Her poem I will not kneel again (2021) declares:

Within the spiral of the basket, you taught me to weave,
I coiled a new cycle for myself

Suspended, Nyingati evokes an upright figure, suggesting resilience and defiance of the kneeled position.

4. Pok Lengu (Husks of Beauty), 2024
obuso (raffia) and ensansa (palm leaves)
175 cm × 65 cm × 65 cm, dimensions variable

Sewn to a spherical mass, woven palm tree raffia strips in purple, green, blue, and pink give way to trailing lengths that fall into loose, looping folds. For Kerunen, weaving is a process of “computing math from the fingertips,” a rhythmic negotiation between mind and material. Kerunen sources much of her raffia from the master weaver Nankabirwa Getrude, who works and lives in a rural region near the Uganda–Tanzania border. Raffia palms, once plentiful, are now severely threatened by climate change and water depletion. Raffia’s presence in this and other works on view in the exhibition points not only to the ongoing ecological crisis, but also the struggle for women’s rights in Uganda. In Pok Lengu (Husks of Beauty), Kerunen reworks an ordinary basketry form into a porous skin that holds the memory of labor, collaboration, and the ecological relations that sustain the raffia palm. The work invites viewers to reflect on endurance, what must be let go, and what must be protected.

5. Akwanu (I Count), 2023
obuso (raffia), ensansa (palm leaves), and byayi (banana fibre)
83.8 cm × 76.2 cm × 67.3 cm

The intricate patterning of a purple and pink hued mat illuminates the complex mathematical knowledge of the women with whom Kerunen collaborates. The mat’s topographical folds, alongside the alternating volumetric curves and concave voids of hats and baskets reframe quotidian objects in new light, emphasizing their formal artistry and innovation. In counterpoint to the four works suspended in the Marica Vilcek Great Hall, this floor-based work on view in the John Loeb Room offers visitors a different embodied perspective to engage Kerunen’s art. Its title, Awkwanu (I Count), declaims value and significance.

6. Vitrine of primary sources and NYU Libraries Collections materials

7. Vitrine of primary sources and NYU Libraries Collections materials

8. Vitrine and dedicated shelf of primary sources and NYU Libraries Collections materials