Otobong Nkanga

Collection Société Générale Photo : Jair Lanes

Venue

La Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie de Lyon – Grand Hôtel-Dieu

Born in 1974 in Kano, Nigeria
Lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium

of methodologies, materials and techniques in investigating the notion of territory — its role as a source of power and conflict — and attitudes towards natural resources. Her drawings, installations, photographs and performances examine the social and topographical relationships that individuals maintain with their environment, tracing the intersections between nature, politics and colonialist economics.

As Otobong Nkanga says, she acts as the protagonist of her own work, using her body as a vehicle for her ideas in performances and photographs. In Alterscapes: Playground, the artist placed herself in front of a model of a landscape so that she merges physically with the environment. This series of images links the earth to human actions, both creative and destructive in the way they over-exploit natural resources. Wounds and scars criss-cross the landscape, revealing the traumas that affect the land, while the artist’s gestures suggest other, caring approaches capable of repairing the living world.