Otobong Nkanga, born in 1974 in Kano, Nigeria, explores the land and the environment in relation to our bodies, and the cultures and histories that mould and define them. Working across sculpture, installation, performance, sound, photography and video, the artist brings together what she calls constellations of images, movements and objects, to poetically interweave ideas relating to cultural history and anthropology, geography and geology.
Otobong Nkanga, Between Embers and Ashes (2024) Image: © Otobong Nkanga, Courtesy Lisson Gallery
She fuses in-depth research with her own lived experience. The result is a practice with a distinctive coherence between materials and concepts, where references to present-day geopolitical and ecological realities sit alongside forms, metaphors and symbols that speak to broader timescales and narratives and disparate belief systems.
Otobong Nkanga, Tender Offering II (2024) Image: © Otobong Nkanga, Courtesy Lisson Gallery
She reflects on her early choice to pursue art over architecture, discusses her use of minerals and particular colours, recalls encountering the Bakor monoliths in Nigeria as a child, and then Western masters from Caravaggio to De Hooch in Europe.
She talks about her enjoyment of writers like Uwem Akpan and Helon Habila and the huge range of music she plays in her studio, from Alt-J via Fatoumata Diawara to Rihanna.
Plus, she gives insights into life in her studio and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: “what is art for?”
• Otobong Nkanga: We Come from Fire and Return to Fire, Lisson Gallery,
London, until 3 August
• Nkanga’s first permanent UK commission, for Art on the Underground at Nine Elms Underground station, will launch in 2025
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture app.
The free app offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single download, with new guides being added regularly. They include several museums and galleries that have collected or exhibited Otobong Nkanga’s work over the years, from Tate and the Hayward Gallery in London to the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and another newcomer to the app, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.
If you download Bloomberg Connects you will find that the guide to the Mori Art Museum has a full audio tour of its current exhibition dedicated to a former guest on A brush with…, Theaster Gates. The guide has commentary on the works in the show by Theaster himself, as well as its curators Katoaka Mami and Tokuyama Takuichi.