Phoebe Collings-James invites Onyeka Igwe

Phoebe Collings-James has invited Onyeka Igwe to present an installation bringing together a collection of works by Igwe focusing on the embodied knowing of colonial archive. This screening installation features:

Specialised technique (2018)

William Sellers and the Colonial Film Unit developed a framework for colonial cinema, this included slow edits, no camera tricks and minimal camera movement. Hundreds of films were created in accordance to this rule set. In an effort to recuperate black dance from this colonial project, Specialised Technique, attempts to transform this material from studied spectacle to livingness.

Sitting on a man (2018)

Traditionally, women in Igbo speaking parts of Nigeria, came together to protest the behaviour of men by sitting on or making war on them by adorning themselves with palm fronds, dancing and singing protest songs outside the man in question’s home . This practice became infamous due its prominence as a tactic in the Aba Women’s War, the 1929 all woman protest against colonial rule. Two contemporary dancers reimagine the practice, drawing on both archival research and their own experiences.

the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered  (2019)

This is a story of the artist’s grandfather, the story of the ‘land’ and the story of an encounter with Nigeria—retold at a single point in time, in a single place. The artist is trying to tell a truth in as many ways as possible.

The walls have mouths (2021)

Disembodied tour through an abandoned colonial archive.

PLEASE NOTE: BOOKING NOT REQUIRED. PUBLIC EVENT  DURING GALLERY HOURS.

the names have changed, including my own and truths have been altered (2019), film still, © Onyeka Igwe

Sitting on a man (2018), film still, © Onyeka Igwe

There Were Two Brothers (2019), © Onyeka Igwe