**Artist Talks: Otobong Nkanga — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/artist-talks-otobong-nkanga/

Artist Otobong Nkanga discusses her life, Nigerian and European influences, and works like Fattening Room, tapestries and textiles, at a Fondation Beyeler Artist Talk.

## Key Takeaways

- Nkanga's practice is driven by interconnection between people, materials, landscapes and cultures.
- Fattening Room exemplifies how she fuses personal Ibibio heritage with European art history and multiple media.
- Her work frequently reveals the process of creation as part of its meaning.
- She uses diverse materials, such as earth, textiles and industrial tapestry, to explore ecological and political concerns.

## What the video covers

- Chief Curator Theodora Fisher opens the evening, introducing the Artist Talks series co-run by Fondation Beyeler and UBS since 2017.
- Otobong Nkanga introduces herself as a Nigerian-born (Ibibio) visual artist and performer working in sculpture, performance, installation, drawing and textiles.
- She recounts discovering art as a child in Paris, where an art teacher and visits to the Musée d'Orsay and Louvre made drawing her calmest time.
- Her studies span Paris (Beaux-Arts), Amsterdam (Dutch Art Academy, Rijksakademie) and Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, where fieldwork exposed her to Yoruba culture.
- Nkanga discusses how cultures influence one another, citing Spanish and Portuguese colonial presence, Ankara wax-print textiles and connections she saw in Salvador, Brazil.
- The talk focuses on Fattening Room (1999), a work referencing the Ibibio pre-marriage fattening tradition and Velázquez's Las Meninas, combining sculpture, performance and photography.
- She describes her process, including earth and clay sculpture, lace and taffeta, and the photograph assembled from 18 cut parts.
- Later segments discuss tapestries made with industrial techniques, collaborations with craftspeople, poetry in sketchbooks, and themes of ecology, toxicity and political shifts.
- The conversation closes with reflections on color, perception, cultural difference and how art opens questions about existence in the world.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Welcome and introduction of the Artist Talks
2. 01:00 Introducing the artist and her background
3. 05:00 Early influences and education in Paris and Ile-Ife
4. 08:00 Cultural exchange and connections across continents
5. 11:00 Discussion of Fattening Room
6. 15:00 Tapestries, collaborations and material experiments
7. 20:00 Poetry, ecology and political themes
8. 25:00 Color, perception and closing reflections

Answers

## Questions about this video

What is the Fattening Room work about?

Fattening Room (1999) references the Ibibio tradition in which a bride is fattened during a months-long stay in a house built by her future in-laws, linked to ideas of fertility. Nkanga reimagines this as her own fattening room, blending sculpture, performance and photography and referencing Velázquez's Las Meninas.

How does Otobong Nkanga describe her cultural background?

She was born in Nigeria and identifies as Ibibio from the southeastern part of the country. She also spent formative years in Paris and studied in Europe and Nigeria, and she sees her culture as shaped by many outside influences.

Who organizes the Artist Talks series mentioned in the video?

The Artist Talks were jointly launched in 2017 by the Fondation Beyeler and UBS, and they are held several times a year in various locations, including Riehen.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:01

Speaker A

Good evening. My name is Theodora Fisher, and I'm Chief Curator at the Fondation Beyeler. It is a great pleasure for us to welcome you to the museum this evening. We would like to thank UBS, a longstanding partner of the foundation, and Mr. Oliver, Head of Wealth Management Basel at UBS. The Fondation Beyeler and UBS jointly launched the Artist Talks in 2017, and since then they have been held several times a year in various locations around the world, including here in Riehen.

00:22

Speaker A

Welcome.

00:45

Speaker A

[Applause]

01:17

Speaker A

Otobong, I thought we could start with a question. My question: could you say a few words about who you are?

01:36

Speaker A

Um, so where do I start? My name is Otobong Nkanga, and so I'm pronouncing it now the way everybody pronounces it, but the way my mother, my brother, my sister, my family would pronounce it would be different. So you don't really pronounce it that way, with a T, it's softer. I was born in Nigeria, and I'm from the Ibibio people, so we come from the eastern, southeastern part of Nigeria. I studied in Paris at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, and later on at the Dutch Art Academy in Amsterdam, and then at the Rijksakademie. Yeah, and since then I've been making my work. I'm a visual artist and performer. I work with sculpture, performance, installation, drawing. I think you'll discover it during the evening. I'm happy to be here, and I would like to thank UBS, and I'd like to thank the Beyeler Foundation for having me here and for this moment together.

01:59

Speaker A

Nevertheless, it would be interesting to know: how did you get into art, and are there sources of inspiration that were influential in shaping who you are and what you are doing?

02:13

Speaker A

Yeah. I've always been drawing as a kid, making work, doing things, but I never thought of it as art. I remember being at, um, my mother was posted to UNESCO in 1985, and we went to the British School in Paris, and my art teacher, Diana Shaw, she would have us have art lessons and have all these books on Nkanga... no, on Ngwenya... on Gauguin, on Cézanne, very classic artists, and I was drawn to it. So I would spend my break time looking at artworks. We would go to the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre, different museums in Paris, and I realized that when drawing, making work, or experimenting, it was the calmest time in my life. And so it made sense, and that's something I wanted to do, because it was the moment when everything was quiet and I could just focus on making things, and also just enjoying and seeing other artists' works and wanting to be like them.

02:34

Speaker A

Following what you were just saying, how did you manage the balancing act between Africa, your homeland, and Europe, your adopted homeland, one could say?

02:55

Speaker A

Yeah, I think I was fortunate enough to be able to have a part of my adolescence in Paris, which was a place where you could see so many things, and also going back to Nigeria after that and studying at the Obafemi Awolowo University. There I studied art, but at the same time one of the things that made it amazing was that I had a teacher who would make us do fieldwork, so we would walk through the city of Ile-Ife, which is the main, the crown, or the kingdom of Yoruba culture, and that's the origin of Yoruba culture. We would then be able to see all the things that were done by the Yoruba people, who would make, um, beads, in the streets, and you learn about other cultures just studying in Ile-Ife. And later on in my life I went to Brazil, and I realized that in many places, like in Salvador, there were things that I could actually see in Nigeria. So you understand that we do not stand alone as a culture, but our culture has been influenced by many other cultures coming in. We had the Spanish, who came in much earlier, the Portuguese, and then later on the British, the French. You have people and cultures passing through, leaving things behind and also taking things with them. For me it was interesting to understand how we are connected, especially with my Ibibio culture, how we are connected to other places, how come we're wearing, um, Ankara and things like that for our traditional wear. So it came with a lot of questions.

03:14

Speaker A

Good. Your work is based on a comprehensive concept, the core of which is the interest, I'm quoting you, in how things are connected, how we are connected to things, how we are working in the landscapes we live in, how we are managing to experiment with the materials we encounter every day. At the same time, your works (installations, performances, video works, textile works) create many individual narratives, thus making the comprehensive concept and ideas vivid and understandable on a small scale. Let us talk about them, and by doing this we will certainly touch on the big story. Which work will you choose to start with?

03:36

Speaker A

I think it's that one. Yeah, I thought I would. It's good that you've had time to look at it for a bit. This is a work called \*Fattening Room\*, and I think this work opens up ways in which it talks about different cultures being put into one, but within the Ibibio culture. Before a woman turns into, well, before you get married, the family you're going to marry into would normally build a little house where you would live for about three to six months, depending on how wealthy the family you're marrying into is. So the more money they have, the longer you stay in this house, and this is the period where the woman is fattened, and she's fattened in the right places: the thighs, the breasts, the hands, the stomach. That also brings in the idea of fertility, that she's able to have a child. For me, at that age I should normally have gotten married. I decided that, well, I wasn't living in Paris, I would not do the fattening room, so I decided to make my own fattening room. That's why this work is called \*Fattening Room\*, but I did not think of it in the sense of physically getting fatter, just thinking of ways in which the cultures that have come into our lives have entered my culture. When we think of the Portuguese who came in at a certain time, and the Spanish, we also start looking. I started looking at paintings like \*Las Meninas\* by Velázquez, and this is influenced by the painting \*Las Meninas\*, so I took myself almost like Las Meninas. This is me in the sculpture, made out of the lower layer, made out of earth and clay, in which I built every ring, every month, almost like building my own house, in which I sit. Then the top part is made out of lace and taffeta, entering into thinking of the many, and the kind of richness, and this material of textile that talks about richness, and also the color, the reflection that brings us into a place of thinking of rich materials, and combining both as a way of thinking about fattening. This was a performance, at the same time a photographic work, at the same time a sculpture. So it was the first time I was able to bring together many mediums into one, thinking of fashion, thinking of the house, the body, thinking of sculpture and performance. At the end of the day, the final work was the final image, cut into 18 parts and put together to make this photographic work, and the end becomes a photographic work instead of all the rest. For me the connection is not only about the material or the place, but also how materials, if we look at the lace and the earth, how they connect and create a language. If we look at the history of architecture, how that connects in a place like Brazil or Nigeria, or in a place like Europe. So for me I'm looking at these things that connect us, and those things that resonate either in aesthetic form, or concept, or texture, or material. Yeah, it's a very beautiful early work and a good example of what you were talking about. It's from 1999, yes, so 25 years ago. Oh my God, time flies. If we look at the work of Otobong, the process of its creation is always somehow visible. Indeed, it seems to be an essential part of the message or content of a work: the process of creation.

03:55

Speaker A

them and so following what you were just saying how did you manage The Balancing Act between Africa your Homeland and Europe your adopted Homeland one could say yeah I think I was fortunate enough to be able to have a part of my Adolescence in

04:19

Speaker A

Paris which was you know place where you could see so many things and also going back to Nigeria after that and studying at the aafia Walla University um and there I studied art um but at the same time one of the things

04:35

Speaker A

that made it amazing was that I had a teacher that would make us do field workor so we would walk through the city of eair which is the main the the crown or the kingdom of uruba culture and

04:48

Speaker A

that's the origin of Yuba culture and we would then be able to see all the things that were done by the Brazilian Yuba people that would make um pebbles in the Street and and you learn about other cultures just studying in in eair and

05:08

Speaker A

later on in my life I went to Brazil and I realized that many places like in oroo there were things that were actually I could actually see in Nigeria so you kind of understand that we do not stand

05:21

Speaker A

alone as a culture but our culture has been influenced by also many other cultures coming in we had the Spanish that came in much earlier the Portuguese and then later on the British uh the French you know you have people cultures

05:38

Speaker A

passing through and and leaving things behind and also taking things with them so for me it was interesting to understand how are we connected especially with my ibio culture how are we connected to other places how come we're wearing um balain and and things

05:57

Speaker A

like that for our traditional wear and and so it's it came with a lot of questions good good your work is based on a comprehensive concept the core of which is the interest in I'm quoting you how things are connected how we are

06:18

Speaker A

connected to things ex how how are we working in the Landscapes we live in how are we managing to experiment with materials that we encounter every day at the same time time your Works installations performances Voice works textile Works

06:39

Speaker A

create many individual narratives thus making the comprehensive concept and ideas Vivid and understandable on a small scale let us talk about them and by doing this we will certainly touch on the big story which work will you choose to start with I think

07:04

Speaker A

it's that one yeah I thought I would um it's good that you've had time to look at it for a bit um and this is a work called fattening room and I think this work opens up ways in which it talks

07:19

Speaker A

about different cultures being put into one but within the ibio culture um before when a woman or when before you turn into um well before you get married um um the family from that you're going to marry into um would normally build a

07:40

Speaker A

house a little house where you would live in for about 3 to 6 months depending on how wealthy the family you're marrying into is so the more money they have the longer you stay in this house and this is the period where

07:55

Speaker A

the woman is fattened and she's fattened at the right places the thighs the B the hands the stomach and that also brings in the idea of f fertility that she's able to have a child and so for me um

08:09

Speaker A

that age normally I should have gotten married I decided that well I wasn't living in Paris I will not do the fattening room so I decided to make my own fattening room um and so that's why this work is called fattening room but I

08:22

Speaker A

did not think of it in the sense of um getting physically fatter but just thinking of ways in which the cultures that have come into our lives how that has entered into my culture and when we think of the Portuguese that

08:37

Speaker A

came in at a certain time and the Spanish we also start looking I started looking at paintings like of um Las Minas of Vasquez and this is influenced from the painting of Las Minas Basquez so I took myself almost like Las Minas

08:53

Speaker A

and this is me in the sculpture made out of the lower layer made out of Earth and clay uh in which I built every ring every month almost like building my own house in which I sit in and then the top

09:07

Speaker A

part which is made out of lace and tafeta kind of entering into thinking of the many and the kind of richness and this material of textile that talks about rich and also the color the the the the reflection that brings us into a

09:24

Speaker A

place of thinking of Rich materials and combined both as a way of thinking of flattening and this was a performance at the same time a photographic work at the same time sculpture so it was the first time I was able to bring together many

09:40

Speaker A

mediums into one thinking of fashion thinking of house the youth thinking of sculpture and and performance and at the end of the day the final work was the F image cut into 18 parts and put together to make this photographic work and the

09:57

Speaker A

end becomes a photographic work in instead of all the rest so for me the connection is not only about the material the place but also how materials if we look at the lace and the Earth how that connects and creat a

10:12

Speaker A

language if we look at the history of architecture how that connects in in a place like Brazil or Nigeria or in a place like in Europe and so for me I'm looking at these things that connect us and those things that resonate either in

10:30

Speaker A

aesthetic form or concept or Texture material or yeah it's a very beautiful early work and a good example for what you were talking about it from 1999 yes so 25 years ago oh my God time flies if we if we look at the work of of

10:53

Speaker A

viewers the process of its creation is always somehow visible in indeed it seems to be an essential part of the message or content of a work the process of creation is therefore not just a means to an end it is more but

11:13

Speaker A

what it concerns for one thing the technique in which a work is made like for example the weaving of the tapestries and as this is what we would like to hear now um there are many ways of thinking of the

11:34

Speaker A

work and also engaging in ways in which the the thoughts the imaginary the aesthetic all that come together and um I with tapestry I would start from a my childhood and understanding what it is to work with Yarns to work with dyes to

11:57

Speaker A

work with um um other different kinds of materials to understand what it means to put something in a chemical or not or to work with the heat and tone so for me that idea of working with tapestries and

12:12

Speaker A

I've been working with that for quite a while now since I think 2010 um making tapestries but I started much earlier with making bati and my mother used to make batic and we it was the way of finding um

12:29

Speaker A

thinking of it as an economy for the house cuz she was a French teacher but at the same time when you're not paid by the government and they forget to pay your salary for a year um you have to

12:40

Speaker A

find a way of um taking care of your four children and putting them in school and so my mother started by making art making batic making things like that and that's when I learned a lot about color and learned a lot about um um bati

12:58

Speaker A

learned a lot about using CTIC soda all the salts all the kinds of chemicals and minerals that come with that or working with Indigo and things like that and so weaving became something very natural and the for example with this tapestry

13:15

Speaker A

um I showed this at the K tala in K house in brein and in brein it was a tapestry that um four tapestries in which we are able to see some of the tapestries here which become on story

13:30

Speaker A

and the notion of weaving is so important in thinking about this because as you put each thread together you're creating new colors so we I worked with 12 Yarns and with 12 Yarns we're able to make 100 and 40 colors so the more

13:47

Speaker A

you're mixing the Yarns twisting connecting you're able to also create this other um expansion and explosions of colors but apart from that explosion you're also able to create different kinds of bindings and different kinds of tension with the weaving so for me that

14:07

Speaker A

was something I was very much interested in in thinking about not only the weaving but thinking about how my ideas that were linked to the Bottom of the Sea and bringing that to the surface and thinking about climate comes into play I

14:24

Speaker A

should I would like to add Al first of course I would like to add that these four tapestries and are in the collection of the fer we are very happy about this but now what I think is important you add that these are now um

14:41

Speaker A

digitally and um how do you say made in in tilberg in a culture in a where all weing is also a tradition so that's I think also interesting to know yeah it is important because I looked at different um places

15:02

Speaker A

to be able to make the weaving and for example I visited also the Guang in Paris but the Goan they make for the French government but in the Goan it takes a tapestry like this and it's not even possible in the traditional sense

15:15

Speaker A

of weaving to make a tapestry like this um it might take up to 12 years 12 13 years making one tapestry so um in the day and age we are in um it's a different kind of speed and different

15:30

Speaker A

kind of time and it's in in tilberg you're able to work there's a lab and you're able to really experiment push the technique farther and I remember when um this was shown in brein and we had the machines that are made with um

15:46

Speaker A

the donier machines which are made in lindow um Mr Peter donier came to see the tapestry and he was like this is not made with my machine and I'm like yes it is cuz he couldn't believe that that you

16:00

Speaker A

could actually push the technique that far with the kind of Machinery because you think it's meant to behave in a certain way but you can actually twerk the machine to weave in another way and to create also layers within the

16:17

Speaker A

tapestry and so for me working at tilberg is quite exciting because you're able to see also many um designers artists architects thinking about structure but also thinking about color and thinking about form and you learn a lot from what other

16:37

Speaker A

people are doing but at the same time you're able to build your own um way of working yeah well we could talk hours about this work but we shouldn't um maybe we come back to it because another part of the process of creation

17:01

Speaker A

are materials yeah you are passionate yeah yes you are passionate about exploring the materials you are using in your Works they are sensual palpable often obviously connected to Earth or nature how did this interest in material come about well I think we we I it's a

17:29

Speaker A

buildup I cannot say that there is a particular time that I felt like oh now I'm going to be working with material but the thing was that I know from my childhood um leaving in Nigeria you're so connected to specific things

17:46

Speaker A

um certain things are so obvious in the landscape like encountering mic car on the street when going to school so you're walking on the street and you see this thing shining because the light falls on it and you're looking at it

17:58

Speaker A

like wow and you pick it up on the street and there are many of that running around and these are filos silicat so they're just mainly minerals in on the floor just there for you to play with and this of course is in the n

18:11

Speaker A

in the 80s where you have um also the time of bling with Danna Ross with everything that was blinging and bunny M and and so for me it was the moment of like ooh something is shining you put it

18:23

Speaker A

on your skin and you imagine you're a superstar or you imagine you're a singer so that was part of my playground just playing with materials on the street and imagining to be something or someone from America or someone from here and so

18:38

Speaker A

for me it's just been a natural thing of being being lucky to have been with materials and then growing up and encountering them in a different place like the Micah I encountered them in Morocco again and I'm like what is it

18:52

Speaker A

doing here and then it starts becoming a question that then becomes work and that's the way I'm been thinking about you know if we think of architecture the houses that we lived in in the past and now we're living in concrete houses

19:09

Speaker A

which don't breathe and then you have air condition and then I'm like why don't we build or why didn't we develop a bit farther earn houses and then I Tred to see what has been going on in the world who's making stuff and then um

19:24

Speaker A

for bre I realized that Martin ra lives in schin and I can actually work with Martin Ral to make this work that then becomes this sculptural piece and he knows a lot about ramed Earth and so you work with people that you know so it's

19:42

Speaker A

not only about the materials I know but it's about my curiosity and then working with people that have the knowledge and then learning and sharing and then able to then develop works and think further about the materials I me interested

20:00

Speaker A

in maybe you have anamneses now yeah where so sometime when you will come back to f um we will certainly show Once you will install them properly yes all four tapestries together with um other things the glass bows Etc

20:27

Speaker A

yeah so just showing you a few of the tapestries that have been shown at different places the early works like this weight of scars which have photographic images on a plate on the tapestry um and and then we get to

20:45

Speaker A

anamnesis um yeah yeah well now it's a Pity that we can only see it yes um and not be there because you would smell it yeah you saw it in Bru when I showed it in BR and I was um

21:03

Speaker A

mesmerized please this yeah say something yeah so I the when we look at it we just think maybe it's a wall with you know a kind of Dent or cavity in the wall but this work is uh 11 M long wall

21:20

Speaker A

um by about 5 m high and in it we have this font or this kind of cut within the wall where we have um elements that have been brought in by the Sea into Europe so it's to think about what are these

21:38

Speaker A

elements that have influenced our food our the way we smell certain things and how that has entered through the cross culture and connections that we've had with Europe and many other places in the world so what we have here are mainly

21:56

Speaker A

like peppers like we could have peppers from guine um which were one of the early Peppers that were brought in from in Brugge um you have coffee you have cacao you have red peppers you have Earth um that went

22:12

Speaker A

too fast go back I go back and and so with that I the sculpture is um not only about the elements that have been brought in um and put on the sculpture but when you walk through the space and you can walk

22:30

Speaker A

close to the wall you're actually smelling the different elements so the whole room is actually filled with scent so for each space where the work is shown we actually do um a lot of um research and finding out what comes into

22:47

Speaker A

this area like in Bru we looked at the Medieval Times what elements came in and then we see there was a tobacco there were coffee there all the things that came in and with this elements then we I

22:59

Speaker A

used that to be able to sculpt this work along the wall and you walk around the wall it's almost like a belt and you can smell the elements on the wall although it is when did you do it

23:14

Speaker A

many the first time I showed this work was in 2015 in D tahala in Hamburg and when I showed it then I only did one part of the world wall and later on I showed it in Chicago at the MCA in Chicago and

23:31

Speaker A

there that's when I developed it as a belt around the wall and so the wall is not just the worldall becomes really a sculptural piece in the space and people can walk around the wall and also smell the element so some parts are made quite

23:47

Speaker A

low so that children can actually smell so I'm thinking of the height of human the human being and thinking of ways in which we can bend and also the per informativity of the body in space and also for young kids taller people and

24:05

Speaker A

sometimes you have to lift someone up to smell higher but to play with those different heights so when you're looking at the sculpture and you're looking at the people looking at the sculpture you start seeing a play almost like a

24:19

Speaker A

performance of bodies working with the sculpture and that's what I'm interested in and how that can um play and can work with people moving through space and of course it reminds one it reminds us then also that where

24:40

Speaker A

from all these goods are coming and um that they are still very precious to us yes coffee chocolate isn't there also chocolate there's chocolate there's coffee there's um cardamon there different spices Ginger there there's Pete there is um tea

25:03

Speaker A

tobacco um there quite a lot of elements in it and I think the name anamnesis why I wanted call the title of the work um was to be able to because anamnesis means to recollect something that has been forgotten and the work is really

25:21

Speaker A

connecting to the me memory and how smell can be a trigger to memory and and um positive or negative memory but at least it wakes up many um thoughts and many um yeahh yeah all to Al together the place

25:44

Speaker A

your sense for of sight is significant in your work the place shapes the works and permeates them wherever you are for example you work in one way or another refers to the place it was this was the cas the case for example in Bru you

26:05

Speaker A

mentioned it already where you created a huge installation for the St Jan's hospital and as well as in other places the location is certainly an inspiration but there must be more why this big interest in letting the place

26:25

Speaker A

have such a strong voice um partly you already were talking about but yes yeah um the for example I'll start with BR and this is an image of the exhibition that I did in brge um in 2022 so when I was invited to the space

26:50

Speaker A

this used this is the one of the oldest hospitals in Europe so from the medieval times and when I visited at the space I of course it's filled with so much history but when you look also at the

27:06

Speaker A

material that was built in I don't know 12 something I can't remember the date precisely um you see that it's still standing today and for me it's very important to be able to understand that history to understand what it means um what that space meant

27:28

Speaker A

and how that space has evolved and also to see where how do I connect with the space and there was a work that I made called Taste of a stone and it made sense to be able to bring this work into

27:41

Speaker A

the space because the whole building is held by stones and so it made sense that I could bring Taste of a stone with this base of the stone and thinking of the wood and then create this kind of landscape in

27:56

Speaker A

which you could walk through and also think about that notion of bodies lying in space what it meant as a place to open up for people that were moving through the country what it be what it meant as a hospital which is a different

28:13

Speaker A

notion than today what a hospital is and to create a place that is calm that almost like a landscape that you can walk through and see also other elements that belong to the collection and also the work so there different works that

28:30

Speaker A

have come in in spaces that make sense in relation to death in relation to life um and the work for example this tapestry made sense in relation to the graveyards because the tapestry has plants that are commemorative to um

28:51

Speaker A

tombstones and and for example this is another place in shaja and I think about the context and shaja is where shaja in the Emirates yeah and so in the Emirates with a lot of desalination a lot of the wells are

29:10

Speaker A

drying because of the groundwater is being used and at the end of the day the salt water comes in then it made sense to make a work when I visited the site I met this tree and this tree was dead

29:26

Speaker A

already and I was like what why did you die meanwhile there are other trees that are green around that area and I'm wondering why is this palm tree dead so it made sense to make a work in which it

29:41

Speaker A

it died I kind of created a fictive story about the tree dying from drinking salt water and then it kind of brings in the history of the place and create the SPs with salt water so you're slowly talking about the history of a place

29:58

Speaker A

you're talking about the possible future of a place and at the same time it's a place where you could move around Listen to Sound look at the work and then it allows you to contemplate and allows you to think about the future it allows you

30:15

Speaker A

to think about materials it allows you to think about ecology the climate and different things I'm interested in but it's important to be able to find ways in which my ideas my thoughts my research my um finds a bed or kind of

30:33

Speaker A

ground in which we can both have a conversation MH I I don't know if I should talk about this one too because this one um this is because it's so different It's So Different yeah I think it's a good

30:55

Speaker A

example yeah and when you talk about space and you talk about Place sometimes it's not only about being in a place and and connecting to that place but it's also about thinking about how certain geographies um have shifted due to

31:16

Speaker A

ecological um economical and political policies and shifts and and for me I'm interested in that because of coming from where I come from but also living in Europe you also understand and see especially at the beginning of the um

31:34

Speaker A

economical crisis in 2007 that you see how that has changed the the way even in Europe the economics of things the way um certain countries were branded and so for me the the work um that I did in document was actually a

31:53

Speaker A

soap so when we look at the soap the soap contains charcoal and if we think of charcoal it's something it's um an organic matter that has been um burned in the absence of oxygen and with that is connected with seven oils and butters

32:15

Speaker A

so Cher butter coconut butter all the things that are nourishing the world and when you make a sculpture like this you're putting two elements together which is one that is is burnt and the other one that nourishes so they're in

32:31

Speaker A

contradiction and they become the soap that you can use but it also talks about geographies so if we think of the palm trees or let's say the olive trees that we have um in the next I don't know years and Century would we be able

32:50

Speaker A

to still have those olive trees would we still be able to have those oils that we use so for me it's interesting to think about what the land offers what a space offers is very particular but once that

33:04

Speaker A

space starts shifting then what happens to that economy what happens to that material and how does it change also the power and the wealth of a place so it was interesting to be able to talk about the burning of a place and also the

33:19

Speaker A

nourishment of a place but through a sculptural piece which is a soap and that still enters the notion of thinking of space material material um also skin care and also um economy and with this project we sold 15,000 soaps as a

33:40

Speaker A

performance in Athens and for 100 days we had the performers performing selling the soap and with the money we're able to open a foundation in Nigeria and an art space in Athens and so like that connecting different geographies and

33:57

Speaker A

also thinking of what it means to be able to create a support structure that allows for things to continue so for me the notion of space sculpture material is quite an expanded one not only about what I encounter in a space but it's

34:15

Speaker A

also about how do you think of creating something within a space that allows for other things to exist um yeah I think I'll stop there good good good you have developed a very powerful aesthetic of attraction that draws us

34:39

Speaker A

into a work if we engage with one of your Works only we often get right in the middle of the whole Narrative of views why is this and how does it work because um really we are talking now or Bon is

34:59

Speaker A

talking about the works but if we are standing in front you can see it here almost you can feel it but also the tapestries or if we are looking at your performances first is just the attraction to look at it without having

35:18

Speaker A

to think about it at all but then because you are attracted and it looks beautiful very often and um yeah maybe also familiar sometimes or unfamiliar but interesting and then you start about thinking what does it say but that's why

35:41

Speaker A

um I'm very interested to hear something about this yeah I I you know sometimes we're looking at some things and you could look at an insect or you could look at a frog or whatever and they have the color

35:58

Speaker A

that are so attractive like it's the red is just incredibly red or or the the or even some Landscapes that have um toxicity intense toxicity might have colors that are first attractive so you might walk through a landscape you're

36:16

Speaker A

looking at the space but actually it's been um you have the Spiel of uranium or you know I visited certain sites where you there were former sites of Mining and there glowing with colors and so for me it's kind of interesting to be able

36:32

Speaker A

to look back at how nature and how the natural world uses also certain things as ways of Attraction ways of calling someone like oh my God look at me I'm this but once you touch it it might do

36:48

Speaker A

something to you it might be poisonous it's like the the the red mushrooms with white dots on it and then you're looking at it and first of all you might just think oh my God it looks grade but then

36:59

Speaker A

if you eat it it does something to your body and so there are many ways of like entering into an artwork or entering even when you look at a marble stone that is been created by time and you're

37:12

Speaker A

looking at it and you're just you could sit there for hours just looking at it and I'm interested in those kinds of play between something that works with the visual um works with the eyes and then the next moment it can then trigger

37:29

Speaker A

something else that could work with the smell and so you're using all those different um possibilities cuz that's what we humans that's the capacity we have of having five or you know maybe we talk about six sense um and all those

37:46

Speaker A

senses are ways of existing in the world and we can some people can see some cannot some can smell better some can um some might not even be able to see color the way we're thinking so we're having

38:00

Speaker A

different abilities and I'm interested in how the relationship of the body those abilities and how that connects also to how you enter an at work and how you could make things that might seem familiar but then you could connect it

38:16

Speaker A

with something that suddenly shapes the way we imagin that material to be and I'm interested in those kinds of ways of working with the senses to be able to bring the body closer to the work and then the brain works and the Body Works

38:35

Speaker A

and the Heart works so beauty is a ambivalent value then it well beauty is a very difficult thing I mean a lot of us there's certain things that we agree this is beautiful um but at the same time it's it depends also from different

39:02

Speaker A

cultures many ways in which you've been brought up and for some people color is not at all a thing that is beautiful like looking at something that's so bright could be actually overwhelming and for some people white a

39:16

Speaker A

minimal color thing or almost no color is the most beautiful thing so it's a very subjective um thing to talk about beauty but I I think the way I would consider for myself not necessarily about other people is to think about

39:35

Speaker A

ways in which tone color and atmosphere so an atmosphere like in this room we're here and we have the Warmness outside and in here it feels very um cold somehow and you have that warmth that is burning it feels like something is

39:53

Speaker A

burning out there so how can I translate these two contrast in the space and create the tone and the emotion of the space and that is something that many I mean different artists will interpret it in many ways but I think color tone and a

40:13

Speaker A

kind of sense of an emotion to that tone is very crucial to be able to translate something if someone finds that beautiful then it's amazing if not then maybe they might find something else that they can enter in the work and connect to

40:36

Speaker A

yeah you are open to talk about your work but you never explain a specific work words do play a role however not in a discursive way but in the form of poetry we can see it in titles of works

40:57

Speaker A

or titles of exhibitions and in short poems you brought one here yeah the I'm not good I wouldn't say I'm not good at writing but I do not enjoy writing um I love talking I could talk for hours maybe you've

41:22

Speaker A

noticed but um their performances where like one of the performance I did at which was um I think I talked for 9 hours nonstop I just sat down and the performance was about contain measures of Shifting States so people would come

41:40

Speaker A

and is this round thing and I would sit and and people would just talk and we would talk about things about shifting States and about their lives and I just and nine hours passed without me even realizing that nine hours had passed so

41:58

Speaker A

language um I've always found that just writing like an academic text let's say about my work has been very difficult because it's with language and with um words it's very hard to find sometimes the right word that can express

42:18

Speaker A

everything you want to say and I and for titles of works for example there was a work I did called fragil list predicament and I couldn't find a word that expresses the science of fragility I looked everywhere and I was

42:38

Speaker A

like where do so I had to invent the word fragil list it's like the person that studies fragility and it made sense because you always say a geologist um you know you always have terms for people that are studying

42:54

Speaker A

something and so at the end of the day the title of the work was fragil list and sometimes I have to invent a word that I feel makes sense for the title but the only place that I feel that

43:09

Speaker A

works very well and I could sit down in my room and just write for hours is poetry so what you see here on this tapestry is a note from my Sketchbook in which I'm writing the Poetry of in a

43:24

Speaker A

place yet unknown and and so if we take a word like age or rage um then I start thinking of rage and I can think of sage so both can actually become a performance where you're enraged but you're using the sage to clle to cleanse

43:44

Speaker A

so you can actually start playing with that kind of like so you can have the smoke in the room and you can have the rage and you could be cleansing and raging away but at the same time you can age from that

44:00

Speaker A

because you've been raging too much and you've been saging too much so in a way you're kind of like building of the story and in my head it becomes like whoa and then as like as I'm aging then

44:11

Speaker A

it can become this fragile thing but then am I making people afraid am I making people angry oh and then so it started building up this place or this poem of in a place in between a state a

44:26

Speaker A

solid a melting fragile and so my thoughts are actually so this is one of the most how do you say less complex writing for the poem um but there are other ones that are more complex where you have arrows and things

44:41

Speaker A

it's almost like drawing and in this one I wanted this tapestry so there's a tapestry work and at the bottom you have um liquid with dye and ink and the tapestry is put in this liquid and over time the liquid

44:59

Speaker A

goes into the tapestry and the tapestry is now is falling apart at the bottom but it's meant to slowly fall apart over time and so the poem kind of disappears over time so um but I was interested in

45:16

Speaker A

this state of thinking about what fear does and how fear Crips into things like almost like the liquid entering into the tapestry and how that kind of changes the way we are without realizing that we're changing um and so I wanted it in

45:35

Speaker A

a more physical way and as poetry and there's some other poems like this that are pressed into Earth um so this was the Earth from the veral beag region and then the poem is actually pressed in it and um and there's some other poems that

45:52

Speaker A

are written normally in clay um there other things so I'm always writing in poetry because it allows to touch the most fundamental part of the work which is the emotion and by thinking or imagining or feeling certain things it's hard to just

46:13

Speaker A

say I am angry today because this happened at 400 p.m. blah blah blah but it would be maybe more interesting to talk about not about how angry I am but maybe talk about the stone heating um a rock and then the rock heating the sand

46:34

Speaker A

and then the sand creating gusts of Terror and then the terror becomes dust entering into our lungs mingling in and then it then affects the Rage or the anger or the happiness and so you're not looking at just the anger but you're

46:50

Speaker A

looking at all the consequences that brings you to that state of being angry and that emotion maybe it's not anger maybe it's fear maybe it's Terror maybe it's um um uncertainty maybe so you start questioning what are you thinking

47:11

Speaker A

when you think I'm angry or I'm happy what does it mean and that allows you to break down and create a poem which is not anymore about anger but about all the steps in which you get to a state of

47:25

Speaker A

being and that's what I'm interested I'm not interested if I'm angry or not who cares yeah very beautiful thank you also only the titles sometimes are um poetry but a lot of the titles are taken from the Poetry so um some of the Poetry will

47:52

Speaker A

contain the title of the exhibition or the title of the work um the there was a t a carpet I made and that it was called um um loaded tears turn to rock so if we think of our tears they

48:14

Speaker A

turned to Salt MH so it's a kind of rock and then that that's one work became loaded tears turned to rock and then the other part another work was um um silent caress um I have to remember it but it

48:33

Speaker A

became one poem but it was two works at the end of the day so yeah well one question I have but maybe you were already talking about was is what do you hope to achieve with your works you don't have to no but I can I think I

49:07

Speaker A

can I I don't know if it's something what I need to achieve but my own interest is why do I put something in the world first there's so many things in the world and why should this work be in the world

49:27

Speaker A

and what should it be doing in the world and there are many answers and many questions that more answers and it brings more questions but a lot of times it's to think about how would this work find its

49:47

Speaker A

end life um um who am I making this work for um um and I remember when I started working and it keeps shifting I remember that in many institutions you didn't have many artists coming from the African continent showing or you didn't have um

50:15

Speaker A

um works that were part of collections that that represented things that came from where I came from unless they were put in ethnographic museums or put in a certain kind of box and so for me it was very

50:30

Speaker A

important to be able to make Works in which um it can resonate for the younger generation for other people that come from places that are not necessarily uh visible in in in different institutions that are here especially in the west and

50:50

Speaker A

so that has shifted also over time it's a constant shift of why you make work but I think for me it's resolving many questions that I have and it's also that thing I talked about it's a place of

51:06

Speaker A

calm where everything shuts down so the world everything is happening in the world and you have to find a place where you can connect deeply to the ground you can be grounded it allows for me to um how do you say to be able to

51:31

Speaker A

understand the world in which I live in and sharing my understanding my own Vision my own understanding with other people in which it would allow to open questions and ways of thinking about existence in the world and and I think

51:49

Speaker A

that's already a big thing because when you think of waking up in the morning I have friends that you know and people that waking up in the morning is such a big thing um or even having the desire

52:05

Speaker A

to make or the desire to exist and you know that it's a very important thing to be able to make something that someone can look at and it can be a mirror or reflection of a possibility a hope so it's not only and

52:24

Speaker A

that's why the idea of connecting is so important than the notion of thinking that we're so different and that you're from here I'm from here and so because you're from here I'm from here we don't have anything in common is to create

52:40

Speaker A

Bridges um and for me that is very important I don't know if I make sense but there are many many reasons why um but these are just a few this is this is um directly what I would um end with my

52:58

Speaker A

last question um your work is dealing with very serious almost hopeless issues and topics however they always retain and convey a positive life affirming affirming basic tone I'm thinking on after we are gun which will come afterwards but you have

53:24

Speaker A

brought with you another one MH which is an example yeah this this work is also a tapestry work I made in 2021 and this work is called tied to the other side and um yeah the the way of thinking about

53:47

Speaker A

this is not only thinking about how we are in this life but also connecting this notion of how we return to dust how we return to Mineral how we return again to nutrients in the soil and that nutrient in the soil create again

54:05

Speaker A

another life so if we think about the kinds of cycles that are in the world it's like nothing goes out nothing comes in we're just kind of like moving through time and there's deep time and things are melting away changing form

54:22

Speaker A

through heat water freezing erosion and and then it settles somewhere else and becomes life for something else so it's this kind of continuous circle of things and I'm interested in in the work kind of opening of like you see the body at

54:40

Speaker A

the bottom but at the same time you have this new life that is starting off again and and we always take ourselves as the main center of the story but like you talked about after we're gone in this

54:55

Speaker A

piece um you have this plant and this is the title of the work after you're gone and actually there other life forms that would leave on Beyond us and and so for me it's interesting to be able to move

55:10

Speaker A

away from a part of just a humanos Centric kind of approach where everything is about me myself we human beings everything is built for us but meanwhile you're having like the fungus the bacterias the virus the the plants

55:26

Speaker A

there other life forms that are expanding multiplying creating their own kingdoms um living through um toxicity um indulging in toxicity and becoming something else glowing in toxicity meanwhile we are fading in it and so you're looking at where some things are

55:48

Speaker A

evolving in such a fast rate um and if we think of chernobil or we think of places of um oil spills or um um different Minds that have spilled um toxicity you're also seeing life forms that are becoming new and other kinds of

56:09

Speaker A

life forms that are able to survive within this if we think of the abys we have down in the 3,000 6,000 kilometers below the sea you're having life forms that are able to live in such depth so when you think of the kinds of expansion

56:27

Speaker A

and life forms that are able to leave we realize that we humans are so fragile and and so and we are trying to compensate our fragility with our Technologies and with many things that make us feel strong and so for me it's

56:44

Speaker A

very much interesting to be able to think about these other life forms and some of the titles kind of talk about the other side or talk about after we're gone or talk about other things that are are are um beyond our own understanding

57:00

Speaker A

and capacity um but when you look at for example this tapestry you might just think of this plant but this plant is a hybrid of many plants together in one but it doesn't look like that it looks like the same one but it's a com

57:14

Speaker A

combination of many plants that have come together to withstand time thank you thank you um that's the end [Applause]

Topics: Otobong Nkanga Fondation Beyeler Artist Talks contemporary art Ibibio Nigerian art performance art sculpture textile art Fattening Room

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