In collaboration with the female congregation of Ansar-Ud-Deen Mosque, Lekki Branch, Lagos, Assembly: London / Lagos extends Assembly, a project originally developed with the Muslim Association of Nigeria (MAN UK) in London in 2019. Using the same aerial recording and playback device, Friday Jumu'ah prayer is filmed and re-presented within the mosque, establishing a material and methodological continuity between the two communities and opening a dialogue between London and Lagos through the shared performance of ritual practice.
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Through the re-presentation of the original London work and the collaborative production of a new film, the project explores questions of belonging, collective presence and community formation across the diaspora. Filmed from the women's balcony overlooking the main prayer hall, the work offers a perspective that is both situated and relational. The moving frame traverses the congregational space below, revealing patterns of collective movement and ritual practice while foregrounding the embodied experience of women within the mosque.
The installation was experienced by women from the Ansar-Ud-Deen congregation, representatives of the Federation of Muslim Women's Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN), and women from across Lagos, alongside artists from the Guest Artist Space (G.A.S.) residency programme. Projected back into the mosque, the work created a reflexive encounter in which women witnessed themselves and one another within the moving image, reflecting on their shared ritual practice from a perspective not ordinarily available to them. The movement of fabric stirred by the ceiling fans and the presence of the congregation became integral to the installation itself. These shifting conditions transformed the projection into an embodied encounter and a living archive, continually reactivated through the material, sensory and social dynamics of the mosque.
