As CCA,Lagos celebrates 4 years, we are pleased to invite Belgium based Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga to present a performative lecture.
Otobong Nkanga will focus on her artistic practice by departing from her places and spaces of inspiration, be it linked to her memories or everyday encounters with objects, landscapes, architectural structures or a pineapple. Eschewing the traditional lecture format, she will bring an element of performativity into the talk as she discusses certain works that have been created in Nigeria as well as in other locations around the world. In so doing she highlights the way in which she negotiates the different spaces and materials she encounters and which allow her to create.
Born in 1974, Kano, Nigeria. Lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. Nkanga began her art studies at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile- Ife, Nigeria, and later continued them in Paris at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam and she finished her Masters program at Dasarts, Amsterdam in 2008.
Nkanga makes use of different mediums like drawing, performance, photography video or installation to put forward observations and sensations of the everyday influences in our social developments/changes in our environment and culture. In her pluri-disciplinary approach, Nkanga’s works, structured around of chains of associations, reveals the complex layering and interwoven histories of our society. Her works refers to autobiographical narratives and social ecological realities of spaces of her homeland and places she encounters.
She has exhibited widely internationally and her recent shows include: “The Altered Landscape”, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada, USA. “Marklinworld”, Kunsthalle KAdE Amersfoort, Amersfoort, The Netherlands. “All we ever wanted”, Center of Contemporary Arts, Lagos, Nigeria. “Outres Measures and Radio Programmes”, La Galerie, Centre d’art Contemporain, Noisy-le-Sec, France. ‘ARS 11’, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland and “Faites comme chez vous”, Raw Material Company, Dakar, Senegal. Website: www.otobongnkanga.com
