Kosisochukwu Nnebe (she/her, b. 1993, Nigeria) is a neurodiverse Nigerian conceptual artist, writer and researcher. Working across installation, lens-based media and sculpture, Nnebe engages with topics that range from the politics of Black visibility, embodiment and spatiality to the use of foodways and language as counter-archives of colonial histories. At its core, Nnebe’s practice is interested in anti-colonial and -imperial world-building through acts of solidarity (human and otherwise), the troubling of colonial logics, and speculative (re)imaginings of otherwise pasts, presents and futures.
A self-taught artist, Nnebe’s educational background in economics and the study of inequalities from McGill University and the London School of Economics, as well as professional background in social, economic and environmental policy through her work with the Canadian federal government all inform her approach to her art practice, which is research-based and geared toward social change.
Nnebe’s work has been shown in exhibitions across Canada and internationally, including the Art Museum of Toronto, Critical Distance Centre for Curators (Toronto), the NIA Centre (Toronto), the Doris McCarthy Gallery (Toronto), the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Galerie de l’Université du Québec à Montréal et a l’Outaouais (Montreal and Hull), Optica Gallery (Montreal), Centre Clark (Montreal), articule (Montreal), the Warren G. Flowers Gallery (Montreal), the Foreman Gallery at the University of Sherbrooke, AXENEO7 (Hull), Artspeak (Vancouver), Richmond Gallery (Richmond, BC), Plug in ICA (Winnipeg), the School for Photographic Arts (Ottawa), The Bows (Calgary), the Art Gallery of Guelph, the Robert McGlaughlin Gallery (Oshawa) and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Kingston), as well as Hausen Gallery (New York City), Green Space (Miami), the Mohr Gallery at Stanford University (Stanford, California), the Bowling Green State University Gallery (Bowling Green, Ohio) and the Tolhuistuin Centre in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
She has been commissioned for public art by Plug In ICA and digital art by the Mozilla Foundation. Her work has been acquired by public institutions such as the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Montreal Roundtable for Black History Month, in addition to private collections in Canada, the United States and Nigeria.
In 2025, Nnebe will be undertaking a year-long residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, the Netherlands. She is a 2023 Awardee of the G.A.S. Fellowship started by Yinka Shonibare CBE RA in Lagos, Nigeria; was nominated for and selected as a 2024 Artist-in-Residence with Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA) at El Espacio 23, a contemporary art space founded by Jorge M. Perez in Miami; and was one of two inaugural artists for NLS Kingston’s Sustainable Sculpture Residency in Maroon Town, Jamaica.
She has been invited to give presentations about her artistic research at art centres and universities across Canada as well as in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Her writing has been commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada, the Department of Love: Love Letters, Disembodied Territories (UK) and Artexte (Montreal). Two of her essays about her practice and research are set to be included in forthcoming book publications. In 2021, Nnebe designed and taught a course on Art and Criticism from a critical and decolonial perspective for the Ottawa School of Art’s Fine Arts Diploma Program.
Nnebe’s work has been featured in arts and media publications internationally including: The Guardian (UK), Contemporary And and Contemporary And Latin America (Germany/Kenya), Sugarcane Magazine (US), Arts.Black (US), CBC (Canada), Canadian Art Magazine (Canada), C Magazine (Canada), the Power Plant’s In/Tension Podcast (Canada), Akimbo (Canada), Esse (Canada), Vie des Arts (Canada), the Agnes Etherington’s With Opened Mouths Podcast (Canada), Studio Magazine (Canada), Herizons Magazine (Canada), Femme Art Review (Canada), Peripheral Review (Canada), Newest Magazine (Canada), and Range Magazine (Canada).
Nnebe is based between Maastricht, Netherlands and Lagos, Nigeria.
A full and up-to-date artist CV, including upcoming exhibitions and residencies, is available upon request. A list of works available can also be found here.