Nigerian artist Ndidi Dike will hold a solo exhibition titled “Commodities of Consumption and Sites of Extraction in the Global South”.
To open Saturday, January 16 at 3 pm it is in conjunction with Goethe-Institut Nigeria and will take place at the Gallery space, Alliance Francaise/ Mike Adenuga Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos.
The artist statement for the exhibition that will feature installation and new works says that “The ongoing catastrophic effects of the health crisis COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, socio economic emergencies has exposed fault lines of our various marginalised and disenfranchised societies. Among other exigencies can be linked to the Anthropocene and historic acts of abuse carried out centuries ago ‘Commodities of Consumption and Sites of Extraction in the Global South’ is the title of a multi-faceted and ongoing artistic research project”.
For quite a while, Ndidi Dike states that she has been intensely engaging historical archives, and working across a range of artistic media including lens-based technologies, collage, installation, painting and sculpture.
“The foregoing modes of practice have guided investigations—across time and with a global reach—that dive into pre- and post-colonial histories of slavery, forced migration, displacement, decolonization, identity, gender inequality, and patriarchy. I’ve also been concerned with the political dimensions of commodites—their consumption, circulation, manufacture, as well as geo-political policies that underwrite the control and extractive industries that govern natural resources and appropriation in Africa.
“I’ve focused my attention on not only the Congo, but also countries such as Madagascar. Part of my interest in these histories, despite the perception held by many that they’ve been exhausted, is the truth that the effects of the past survive in the present. Or, as Maya Angelou puts it, ‘History despite its wretched pain cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage need not be lived again.’”
She explains that this installation takes up consumer products connected with the transatlantic slave trade (along with current day global commodity markets), and highlights their materiality as potent metaphors.
It is not an exhibition to miss but patrons should take note that due to the COVID-19 restrictions, wearing a face mask at the premises is mandatory and the access to the gallery space will be regulated.