The exhibition Spirits of the Soil opens with an introductory gallery presenting photo collages Van Haver made in 2017 during the Lagos Festival, followed by a sequence of four gallery spaces, each featuring a large, new painting. The exhibition reaches its apotheosis in a huge space in which the central painting is embedded in a spatial installation: We Don’t Sleep As We Parade All Through The Night, 2018. This colossal painting measuring 4 by 9 meters, deftly blends the imagery from all the previous galleries. Loosely modelled on Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, the composition portrays a group of people seated at a table spread with food and drinks. The central company around the table fans out into flanking scenes of people eating, drinking, and playing cards. The architecture of the painted neighborhood – informal and decidedly homespun – unfurls into a spatial installation with wooden partitions, steps and elevations.

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"Eating and drinking is the main connecting factor in these communities. The meal is the moment when everyone comes together and exchanges news, and when the social order is established." — Raquel van Haver