AAAAYY: same same but different

AAAAYY: same same but different is free to visit in the AA Gallery from 23 January–21 March 2026, Monday to Saturday, 11am–7pm GMT.

Building on Tawanda Chiweshe and Francisco Gaspar’s 2023 AA lecture Committing to Chaos, this AA Gallery residency is the first public platform to explore the conceptual framework and internal logic that underpins their collaborative practice, YY. It traces the evolution of their shared methodology – shaped during their defining tenure at ALASKA ALASKA, where they worked alongside mentor and collaborator Virgil Abloh since 2017. 

Echoing the dynamics of their working environment, the platform materialises ideas first expressed in their 2023 talk (part of the Creative Directions lecture series convened by Ana Nicolaescu), positioning the studio table as a site for process, research and exchange. It highlights their ongoing commitment to prototyping as ‘a thought process to make sense of the world through continuous iteration’, where no work is final and the past, present and future exist as simultaneous materials for invention. 

Throughout the residency period, contributions from an extended network of collaborators and an accompanying programme of events will transform the AA Gallery into a live platform, reflecting Francisco and Tawanda’s iterative, conversational and relational approach to making.

In dialogue with the AA Public Programme’s Term 2 theme ‘How We Live’, same same but different distils a practice rooted in process, experimentation and continual self-reflection. The residency reflects a long arc of mediation between authorship and influence, where the prototype becomes the most honest marker of a practice understood beyond a design studio.