Ford Foundation Gallery presents Never The Same River

Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice | 320 E 43rd Street, New York

On View: August 12 - December 5, 2026

Opening Event: Wednesday, August 12th, 2026 | 5-7pm

Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday 11am-6pm, Saturday 10am-4pm

New York, NY - TheFord Foundation Gallery is pleased to present Never The Same River,an exhibition exploring themes of bodily autonomy and human migration. Curated by Dexter Wimberly, Never The Same River features work by KV Duong, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Brendan Fernandes, Elliot & Erick Jiménez, Anoushka Mirchandani, and Edison Peñafiel.

The exhibition's title draws on the famous remark attributed to ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus that "No man ever steps in the same river twice." This idea captures the show's meditation on change and impermanence: just as rivers flow and bodies evolve, so too do our identities, perceptions, and environments. The river becomes a metaphor for transformation, an ever-shifting current that reflects the complexity of human experience and the impossibility of returning to a fixed state.

At its core, the show considers how individuals assert agency over their own bodies in the face of cultural and systemic forces that seek to control or define them. Reflecting on the tension and trauma surrounding migration, whether by necessity or by choice, the movement of people coincides with histories of displacement, resistance, and resilience. Through photography, video, sculpture, and painting, the participating artists interrogate these narratives imposed on bodies and borders alike. Their works reveal how storytelling, whether personal or mythological, can challenge dominant ideologies and reclaim space for self-definition.

Born in Vietnam, raised in Canada, and now living and working in the UK, KV Duong explores migration and cultural assimilation through personal and ancestral histories. His paintings forgo the more traditional materials of canvas or linen in favor of latex, a material that carries fetishistic and sensual associations, particularly in relation to queer identity politics, evoking desire, fantasy, and intimacy. Duong's use of latex also references the rubber industry, recalling the exploitative plantations during French colonial rule in Vietnam from 1887 to 1954.

Adama Delphine Fawundu weaves a constellation of connections between herself and her global kin, mapping both physical and metaphysical movements across Africa and its Diaspora. Her poetic video work, shot in Nigeria, Congo, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Malta, Cuba, Brazil, and the United States, creates a tapestry of voices, memory, and flowing waters across continents. In a self-portrait, Fawundu inserts herself within a haunting scene in Savannah, Georgia, asserting empowerment as the work bears witness to historical violence and channels nature's metamorphic possibilities.

Kenyan-born Canadian artist Brendan Fernandes is fascinated by the interaction between human, object, and space, and by the power of objects to inspire movement both physically and metaphorically. His cross-disciplinary works explore issues of race, migration, and protest. For the exhibition, Fernandes presents collages that hybridize African art objects with dancers' bodies, as well as two Isamu Noguchi-inspired rocking chairs. In performance, the chairs are used as training devices, acting as endurance tests for dancers who try to remain balanced while they contract and release their core muscles - a nod to physicality and perseverance.

The exhibition includes a new, large-scale polyptych installation by Elliot & Erick Jiménez, identical twins and first-generation Cuban-Americans. Their photographic practice explores the mysticism of gods in mythology, drawing on Yoruba and Catholic syncretic elements. Inspired by paintings, their work portrays the ephemeral nature of light and color through experimental camera techniques and careful composition, typically rendering their subjects like figures in a painting. Elliot & Erick bridge the unique culture of Lucumí within Cuban spirituality and canonical works from Western art history.

At the heart of Anoushka Mirchandani's practice are bold, ethereal female figures who blur into their surroundings. Rendered in oil and oil pastel with a loose, gestural hand, these women pose with unapologetic self-possession, challenging imposed norms of modesty and visibility.Yet, their partial erasure suggests the emotional labor of navigating multiple identities across time and space. Mirchandani's compositions merge familial histories with everyday imagery, revealing the tension between privacy and exposure, abandonment and reclamation.

In Edison Peñafiel's large-scale, panoramic video work MARE MAGNVM, he presents a stylized, monochromatic sea populated by several boats, each carrying its own unique collection of characters caught in a perpetual loop. Despite appearing larger than life, the boats are constructed of various found objects, including wood, oil drums, and tires, pointing to real-life scenes of migration across bodies of water. The work immerses viewers in the struggle of crossing borders, alerting them to a future in which rising waters will push unprecedented numbers of people away from the places they call home.

Together, the artists and their works confront illusions of the status quo with fluid, merging forms and scenes, expanding beyond disciplinary limits, while casting off frameworks projected onto both bodies and borders.

Image: Edison Peñafiel, MARE MAGNVM: VLTRAMARINI [THOSE BEYOND THE SEA], 2021. Courtesy of the Artist.

About the Curator

Dexter Wimberly is an American entrepreneur and curator based in Japan who has organized exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world, including the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas; The Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte; KOKI Arts and STANDING PINE in Tokyo; BODE in Berlin; Lehmann Maupin in London; SECCI in Milan; Efie Gallery; and The Third Line in Dubai.

Wimberly's recent exhibitions include Derrick Adams: View Master on view at ICA/Boston, through September 7, 2026; The Shape of Things to Come at Efie Gallery in Dubai, UAE; A Material Dance: Lucio Fontana and Alteronce Gumby at SECCI in Milan, Italy; A Direct Response to Light: 21st Century Painting at ALEXANDER BERGGRUEN in New York City; and What is Possible, What is Promised at Galerie Isa in Mumbai, India. In 2023, Wimberly participated in Hauser & Wirth's International Curatorial Residency Symposium in Somerset, England. His exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times and Artforum and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Kinkade Family Foundation. Wimberly has been profiled in Elle Decor and Artnet News. He is a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art and the founder and director of the Hayama Artist Residency and The Kyoto Retreat in Japan. Wimberly is the co-founder of Art World Conference and CreativeStudy. Prior to his curatorial career, he was the managing partner of the New York-based advertising and marketing agency August Bishop, representing a diverse array of clients including Adidas, The Coca-Cola Company, and HBO.

About The Ford Foundation Gallery

Opened in March 2019 at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City, the Ford Foundation Gallery spotlights artwork that wrestles with difficult questions, calls out injustice, and points the way toward a fair and just future. The gallery functions as a responsive and adaptive space and one that serves the public in its openness to experimentation, contemplation, and conversation. Located near the United Nations, it draws visitors from around the world, addresses questions that cross borders, and speaks to the universal struggle for human dignity.

The gallery is free and accessible to the public through the Ford Foundation building entrance on 43rd Street, east of Second Avenue. Pre-registration required for entry.