“Ihe anyị hapụrụ ”
Ihe anyị hapụrụ (2023) is a set of two hair accessories scaled up and cast in solid bronze. In an act of speculative Black futuring, it is part of a larger body of work that imagines the artist’s burial chamber as a future ancestor, inspired by 9th-century bronze sculptures excavated from an ancient Igbo burial chamber in southwestern Nigeria in the 1940s. Scaled up and cast in bronze, these hair pieces reflect an attempt to reconsider what (and who) we choose to remember and commemorate and the legacies we leave behind. Starting with these two hair accessories, the series will grow over time, culminating in a full burial chamber with artifacts representative of experiences of Black girlhood and womanhood across time and space.
The artist would like to thank Atelier La Coulee, the Montreal-based foundry where these works were made as part of an artist residency from Fall 2022 - Spring 2023.
Key words: bronze; restitution; Black speculative futuring; ethnographic gaze; diaspora; displacement; migration; Black girlhood; 3D technologies; future ancestor
Ihe Anyị Hapụru, 2023, Bronze, 10” x 7.5” x 2” and 2.5” x 9.5” x 3”
Neither Here Nor There But Always Home, 2023, UV ink printing on acrylic, ready-made metal holder,
24”x18”x1” and 12”x9”x1”
Photo credit: Alison Postma and Niliin