A palimpsest for the tongue (2024 - ongoing)
From a new ongoing series wherein Nnebe prints archival images on banana leaves as a way of transforming them into material archives in and of themselves: ' a palimpsest for the tongue'. Here the palimpsest refers not only to the juxtaposition of different archival images on the same leaf in some instances, but to the overlay of human intervention on plantlife as an ongoing palimpsest and negotiation of our engagement with the natural environment that we are but a part of.
In the installation, banana prints with archival images showcasing the history of the banana industry in five countries (Jamaica, England, Panama, Martinique, and Uganda) are placed within sheets of acrylic suspended from a steel structure meant to mimic a banana plant. Each leaf of the abstracted plant is in the shape of one of the five countries; when pieced together, they create a new cartographic assemblage that collapses time and space and communicates both human-nature entanglements and entanglements by virtue of migration - forced and otherwise - and economic production systems.
The installation can only be experienced from beneath the canopy of leaves; the viewer is forced to look up to see the photographic traces embedded within the banana leaves. This simple act encourages a re-think of how we engage with the natural environment (looking up reverentially, or down with a focus on control).
This piece was created as a first prototype for a larger installation. The artist would like to thank the Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA) in Miami for providing the space to conduct further research and create this work.
Photo credit: Artist and Diana Larrea
The artist would like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.