“And, If We Observe the Present” (Conversations with Bodo Oilfields)

''And if We Observe the Present'' is an interdisciplinary, or collaborative research-based eco-poetic intervention, that explores issues around cultural identity, migration, neglect, diseases and severe health conditions, loss of ancestral home and livelihoods, neocolonialism, climate futures, institutionalized violence and ecological trauma in the oil rich, polluted Niger-delta. This art installation incorporates or converges between screen printed poems, performance art, video, sound scapes, photography, digital animations, Linocut-printing etc. The hanging poems addresses the natural world of the Ogoni landscape, its beauties and its degradations, for the viewer to experience while walking through the space, an artistic invitation to pay attention to an environment and a people in crisis. The installation also features a green book where the audience can imagine a livable planet for the Ogoni people as a participatory and interactive element thereby reinforce the most critical story of our time: that we must love and care for the planet and appreciate the integrated biological beauty that sustains us or lose the only home we’ve got. So, at the core of this work is the relationship between nature and culture, language and perception. Also, in its capacity to resonate across languages and cultures, this project will honor indigenous peoples’ strength as well as dialogue with the Ogoni voice as a broader symbol of marginalized peoples’ resistance against injustice and environmental degradation of the non-human world through the prism of care. My artistic practice began as a reaction to hunger, and at its best retains the spark that comes from delight and curiosity. My work plays on themes that incorporate high and low cultural references that reflect my interest in deep ecology, climate futures and colonial erasure. I’m interested in how contemporary art making can be used as a conceptual method to imagine new social structures and a more positive future.