ZEKARIAS MUSELE THOMPSON: Divine Weightlessness

October 4 - 30, 2025

CULT Bureau (482-D 49th Street, Oakland)

Artist Reception: Saturday, October 4, 12 - 2 PM


CULT Aimee Friberg is pleased to present Divine Weightlessness, a solo exhibition and residency by Oakland- and Reykjavik-based artist Zekarias Musele Thompson. The exhibition opens Saturday, October 4, 2025, from 12–2 PM at CULT Bureau (482-D 49th Street, Oakland, CA), Divine Weightlessness runs through October 30, 2025, and includes works in photography, painting, etching, and site-specific installation, alongside performances and interactive community programming. The opening coincides with the Museum of the African Diaspora’s Annual NEXUS week, which honors the creativity and cultural impact of Black artists across the region.

In Divine Weightlessness, Thompson offers an exploration of identity, relationality, and the ongoing effects of colonial structures, alongside immersive investigations of the body-mind experience. Since beginning to identify as an artist in 2016, Thompson has explored two intertwined approaches. One investigates how Eurocentric and Euro-American colonial systems continue to shape our environments, institutions, and ideas of identity. The other focuses on creating visual and sonic patterns that center the present experience of the body and mind, offering a way to move beyond ingrained cultural conditioning.

The exhibition features a range of works across media and scale. In FREE MUMIA (2019), a photographic portrait taken on the streets of Oakland, a button depicting political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal draws attention to racialized systems and the ongoing persistence of injustice in the United States. In For Noah (2023), Thompson reimagines a bird’s-eye view of the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Museum near Joshua Tree, layering oil paint atop a photograph of Purifoy’s sculpture Untitled, Asylum. By referencing Purifoy (1917–2004), a post-war American artist and social worker known for creating assemblage sculptures from discarded materials, Thompson foregrounds the significance of the past as a lens for understanding the present, while responding to social and political issues such as the Watts Rebellion. This work blends memory, landscape, and abstraction, engaging with Purifoy’s legacy of resilience, activism, and inventive use of found objects, while exploring how historical context informs contemporary experience and agency. In The Meeting Place, a triptych of paintings takes inspiration from barkcloth paintings by the Mbuti people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, while other works on linen engage with Sara Ahmed’s concept of affect as 'traces left on the body and mind'. Site-specific etchings and installations throughout the gallery emphasize relationality, highlighting the presence of ancestors, communities, and the spaces we inhabit.

Says Thompson: "With this investigation, the gallery becomes a site for recognizing the constant labor and performance of the creation of an identity. That of my own, our elders and forebears, as well as the sites we all occupy.... I am inviting humans to engage with objects, histories, and each other—to recognize that our identities are intertwined and shaped by communal experiences."

Throughout the exhibition and residency, Thompson will activate the gallery through participatory performances and a cultural marketplace called Werk Day (Life Forms). On select days the artist will be present on-site for community and public engagement. Visit the gallery’s exhibition page for an updated schedule on ongoing performances and an artist talk.

About the Artist

Zekarias Musele Thompson (b. 1983, Washington D.C.) is an Oakland- and Reykjavik-based artist working in sonic composition, mark-making, performance, photography, collaborative practices, and writing. Thompson’s work explores humanity’s conceptual and emotional organizational structures and how these forms are made material. Thompson has presented solo exhibitions at the Museum of the African Diaspora, The Lab, Gray Area, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, and Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. Group exhibitions and performances include Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, CCA Wattis Institute, Hamraborg Festival, Ásmundasalur, and Open in Reykjavik, Iceland. Thompson has collaborated with artists including Oysterknife, Salimatu Amabebe, Zack Parrinella, Pétur Eggertson, Phillip Laurent, Lonnie Holley, and many others. He is the instigator of the Togetherness Ensemble and co-founder of Working Name Studios, a collectively organized arts institution supporting underrepresented practices. Thompson was a 2024 Emerging Artist Program cohort member at MoAD and holds an MFA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley.

Upcoming

Mary Fernando Conrad: Impermanence
November 1 - December 13.

Current

ZEKARIAS MUSELE THOMPSON: Divine Weightlessness at CULT Bureau, Oakland
October 4 - 30, 2025
Artist Reception: October 4, 12 - 2 PM

JASKO BEGOVIC: Refugees R Us
September 12 - October 24, 2025
Artist Reception: Friday, September 12, 6-8 PM

Past

ANNA SIDANA + ADRIAN PALLY: flora and form
June 14 - September 20, 2025
Artist Reception: Saturday, June 14, 4-6 PM

JESSICA JANE CHARLESTON: Nightsong
April 24 - July 12, 2025
Artist Reception: Thursday, April 24, 5-7 PM

exquisite thing
November 30 - February 22, 2025

ANNA SIDANA: Sentient Colorations
March 6 - April 12, 2025
Artist Reception: Thursday, March 6, 5-7 PM

NICKI GREEN: Eye of the Fountain
September 6 - February 8, 2025

AMY NATHAN: Compass Rose Hips
June 8 - September 7, 2024

RUXUE ZHANG: Alien Life
May 1 - July 13, 2024

CULT TURNS 10
10 Year Anniversary Exhibition
January 18 - March 2, 2024

TERRI LOEWENTHAL
Mountain Goat Mountain

September 15 – November 18, 2023

Time is a Tangled Web: Mary Fernando Conrad, Sophronia Cook, Cross Lypka, Tyler Cross, Zhivago Duncan, Jean Isamu Nagai, Rachel Kaye, Ruth Charlotte Kneass at CULT Bureau, Oakland
September 28 - December 16, 2023

Last Light: Luz Carabaño, Sophronia Cook, Cross Lypka, and Aidan Koch
June 23 - August 26, 2023

ECHO ECHO: Rachel Bridges and Ivan Bridges at CULT Bureau, Oakland
March 2 - August 5, 2023

RHONDA HOLBERTON: Two Handfuls Of Silver Dust
April 27 - June 17, 2023

LEGACY: Binta Ayofemi, Adrian L. Burrell, Rachel Bridges, Ivan Bridges, Masako Miki, and Jean Isamu Nagai
January 18 - April 1, 2023

ZHIVAGO DUNCAN: Measuring Consciousness
September 15 - December 10, 2022

CULT Bureau: Gaze Interrupted
September 17 - November 19, 2022

AMY NATHAN: Slipknot Loophole
May 14 - August 26, 2022

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: Welcome Home Stranger
March 19 - May 7, 2022

Sapiens / Stories at CULT Bureau
November 10, 2021 - April 30, 2022

Physics & Fiction
January 20 - March 12, 2022

CHRIS FALLON: Irresistible Deception
October 15 - December 18, 2021

Sapiens / Stories on 8-Bridges
October 7 - November 3, 2021

MASAKO MIKI: New Mythologies
June 16 - October 12, 2021

Tales of Metamorphosis: Rebekah Goldstein, James Perkins, and Amy Nathan
June 3 - 30, 2021

Janus II - CULT's 7 Year Anniversary Exhibition
April 9 - May 20, 2021

TROY CHEW: Yadadamean
October 17 - December 12, 2020

We’re all in this together
August 14 - October 10, 2020

Beyond Words
June 26 - August 29, 2020

Ritual of Succession
January 10 - March 28, 2020

Record of Succession at fused space
January 13 - March 27, 2020

AMY NATHAN: Glyph Slipper
September 13 - December 7, 2019

FEMALE TROUBLE 2
June 28 - August 3, 2019

RUXUE ZHANG
April 20 - June 15, 2019

MASAKO MIKI: Shapeshifters
January 12 - March 23, 2019

JASKO BEGOVIC (SKO HABIBI): HUMAN_E.T.
November 30 - December 14, 2019

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: See You On The Flipside
September 8 - November 25, 2018

FEMALE TROUBLE
June 9 - July 28, 2018

TERRI LOEWENTHAL: Psychscapes
March 2 - May 19, 2018

VECINOS
October 27, 2017 - January 20, 2018

RHONDA HOLBERTON: Still Life
January 10 – March 4, 2017

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: Release Me
October 21 - December 10, 2016

NO SHOW MUSEUM: Yves Klein, Maria Eichhorn, Daniel Knorr, Etc.
One Night Only: Monday, October 17, 2016

DESIRÉE HOLMAN: Selected Works
September 17 - October 8, 2016

SHE MOONAGE DAYDREAM:
Facundo Argañaraz, Leah Guadagnoli, Desirée Holman, Kara Joslyn, Max Maslansky, Liz Robb, Tamra Seal, Emily Weiner, & Cate White

July 16 - August 20, 2016

PABLO DÁVILA: Ladies & Gentlemen,
We Are Floating In Space

May 13 - July 9, 2016

MASAKO MIKI: Conversations with Fox, Feather, and Ghost
March 4 - April 30, 2016

SUZY POLING: Total Internal Reflection
January 15 - February 27, 2016

DAN GLUIBIZZI: You Don’t Have to be Alone Tonight
November 6 – December 19, 2015

FRANCESCO IGORY DEIANA: Haptic Render
September 11- October 31, 2015

SEXXXITECTURE: Daniel Gerwin, Rebekah Goldstein, Roman Liška, Max Maslansky, May Wilson & Jake Ziemann
July 1 - August 1, 2015

ADAM SORENSEN: In Situ
May 1 - June 27, 2015

KLARA KÄLLSTRÖM & THOBIAS FÄLDT: Village / High Hills
February 27 - April 25, 2015

PRINCE RAMA: How To Live Forever
January 25 – February 21, 2015

JOSEPH DUMBACHER & JOHN DUMBACHER: Divert (Out of Line)
November 7, 2014 – January 16, 2015

REBEKAH GOLDSTEIN: Passenger
September 12 – November 1, 2014

A PATTERN LANGUAGE: Michelle Grabner, Angie Wilson & Lena Wolff
June 20 - July 19, 2014

MICHELLE BLADE: Gathering Into Being
April 25th – June 7th, 2014

MIGUEL ARZABE: /*Reject Algorithms*/
March 7 – April 19, 2014

JACQUELINE KIYOMI GORDON: Drawings
March 7 – April 19, 2014

FRITZ CHESNUT: Purr Valley
& Rhonda Holberton

January 10 - February 22, 2014

UNSEEN: Miya Ando, Miguel Arzabe, Chris Duncan, Klea Mckenna & Dean Smith
November 10 - December 21, 2013

Past Off-Site Exhibitions

RHONDA HOLBERTON: Still Life 2
April 7 - May 26, 2018

LAS COSAS QUE PINTAN / PAINTING IN AN EXPANSIVE FIELD
Works by Miguel Arzabe & Juan Sorrentino

April 9 – May 17, 2015

EBB: Gina Borg and Chris Russell at Loczi Design
December 10, 2014