Sneaker Wave is a metal sculpture made through an extensive process of scrap salvaging. The form takes the shape of a sneaker, with a world of creatures, fish, and symbolic figures moving beneath and through it.
At the center of the work is Yemoja, the Yoruba goddess associated with water, life, fertility, and creation. In the sculpture, she appears within the wave, tethering herself to a ship at the far end with a rope and lasso in hand.
The piece reflects on the endurance of Yoruba spirituality and African ancestral traditions across the forced crossings of the North Atlantic slave trade. For Afatasi, these customs, spiritual practices, and ancestral connections are not erased by distance. They continue to travel, transform, and be passed down.
Through salvaged metal, ocean imagery, and mythic figures, Sneaker Wave speaks to survival, inheritance, movement, and the persistence of cultural memory.