In the investigation of identity and reconciliation of forgotten histories to the present, the concept of a place is significant to the African art narrative. As an active observer of their immediate environment, an artist is in constant dialogue with a place, physical or non-physical.
There’s more emphasis on what the place means to an African artist in their practice, and this exploration could be political, social or metaphysical as they examine identity, culture, history and the complex relationships between people and their environment. From time to time, African artists have reimagined varied immersive spaces to interrogate diverse topics that affect society. In all, they are questioning and redefining the notion of place in the context of a rapidly changing world.
Installation view of Ndidi Dike’s Deciphering Value: Economic Anomalies and Unequal Dependencies in Global Commodity Trade, 2023. Courtesy of Ndidi Dike/South London Gallery.
Art presents a new way of seeing for the artist and the audience, and often, with this new way of looking comes an important connection between the history of a place and the present. This is an idea that drives artists like El Anatsui, Ibrahim Mahama, and Precious Okoyomon, to address issues of migration, history, culture, and the environment, with site-specific, large-scale installations that use locally sourced materials in their practice.
Nigerian-American poet and artist Precious Okoyomon makes use of sugar cane, which the artist’s grandmother grew in her backyard while growing up in Nigeria, and the kudzu vine, a Japanese plant that has been banned in the United States because of its ability to grow and take over a building. For Okoyomon, it is about witnessing the simultaneous evolution and disintegration of the used materials within a period of time in spaces we occupy as they remind their audience of the origin of the materials used in their work.
Installation view of ‘the sun eats her children’ by Precious Okoyomon at Sant’Andrea de Scaphis, Rome, 2023. Photography by Malick Welli. Courtesy of Flash Art/Sant’Andrea de Scaphis, Rome.
Ibrahim Mahama is best known for his works which incorporate jute sacks, a material that represents Ghana’s complex international trade system and the freedom of movement of goods over people. He explores the boundaries between artistic antagonism and civil participation by creating spaces of social intervention through his large-scale installations. These installations involve sewing yards of worn-out jute sacks and draping them over public Western buildings. Mahama, like Okoyomon, is moved into reviving spaces of forgotten histories because of how the perspective of things and space can change in a split second. With this revival, he creates new functions for these spaces to break into even more spectacular spaces, public and interior, as a way of intervention. In his exploration of the history of places and spaces, Mahama references the “hands of labourers, the imprints of colonialism, and the interference of Britain and the United States in Ghanaian history” in his artistic practice.
From the void came the gifts of the cosmos. Notes by Ibrahim Mahama. 2023. Courtesy of Ibrahim Mahama and Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts.
In terms of materiality and sentimentality, El Anatsui, like Mahama, uses discarded materials such as aluminum bottle caps, printing plates, and milk tin lids to create large sculptural art pieces. With a career spanning more than five decades, Ghanaian artist El Anatsui is one of the most acclaimed contemporary artists of our time. His profound desire to transcend the limitations of place, alongside his connection to his home country is reflected in his choice of materials. Anatsui’s approach combines the world history of abstract art with his local aesthetic tradition as he interrogates the legacy of colonialism, and draws connections between consumption, waste and the environment in his practice.
Installation view of Timespace, a solo exhibition of El Anatsui’s works at October Gallery, Clouds gathering over the city, 2023, Aluminium and copper wire, 386 x 282 cm. Courtesy of Jonathan Greet/October Gallery.
Exploring places in African art is also a way to negotiate the complex interplay between tradition and modernity. This is how these artists have been able to use their work to encourage dialogue and influence cultural and social policies in and outside the continent. Through experimentation and social engagement, self-taught sculptor and activist Ndidi Dike’s work investigates the economic, social, and political structures that govern complex sociopolitical histories. She is uncovering historical ties leading back to Africa in her practice as she radically engages with place, either her home in Lagos or sites across the world.
Installation view of Ndidi Dike’s Deciphering Value: Economic Anomalies and Unequal Dependencies in Global Commodity Trade, 2023. Courtesy of Ndidi Dike/South London Gallery.
The representation of place in art is not limited to depictions of physical scenes alone as Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu, a Nigerian experimental artist, is using research and observations from daily life to explore real and imagined spaces. In her most recent series, ‘Maps’, Kalu is creatively mapping fictional, altered, or hypothetical spaces in relation to Igbo land and its cultural, architectural and mythical practices.
Installation view, Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu, Maps 001 - 005, Thread, cotton woven in Senegal, Linocut on fabric, 2023. Courtesy of Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu.
Artists are inspired by their state of origin and the countries they have travelled to or lived in. For portrait artist Ojo Agi, her practice is based on questions about what place, physical and conceptual, means to her in her art. She believes firmly that a place of belonging can have several iterations as long as people are fully seen for who they are. As a Nigerian Canadian female artist who has been in many spaces where she didn’t feel like she belonged, Agi is using brown paper to create new places where Black people can belong and recognise themselves.
Ojo Agi, No is a complete sentence / No. 3, 2021. Courtesy of Ojo Agi.
African artists are pushing the boundaries of their explorations and creating immersive experiences that challenge traditional ideas of place by utilising mixed media. This way, the future of African societies and their interconnectedness with the larger global community can be imagined in the present.
By Iyanuoluwa Adenle