Yinka Olatunbosun
The Lagos-based contemporary sculptor and mixed-media artist Ndidi Dike is ready to show art enthusiasts her latest collection of installations and media art. Titled “Commodities of Consumption and Sites of Extraction in the Global South,’’ the show will open tomorrow January 16 and run till 24 at the Alliance Francaise/Mike Adenuga Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos.
The show is a multi-faceted and ongoing artistic project thatexplores issues of forced migration, race, post-colonialism, market aesthetics, consumerism, globalization gender equity, multiculturalism, decolonization, identity and contemporary politics.
In this exhibition, materiality, metaphors and geography serve as entry points into the colonial past of the Transatlantic that feature her installations. In the artist statement, she explained how she developed the body of works for this exhibition.
“For quite a while, I have been intensely engaging historical archives and working across a range of artistic media including lens-based technologies, collage, installation, painting and sculpture.
“I have also been concerned with the political dimensions of commodities-their consumption, circulation, manufacture as well as geo-political policies that underwrite the control and extractive industries that govern natural resources and appropriation in Africa,’’ she declared.
Dike graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka with a Diploma in Music Education and later a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine and Applied Arts in 1984, with a major in mixed media painting. After her National Youth Service Corp programme, she became a professional studio artist in her home in Owerri. She is a member of the Guild of Fine Arts Nigeria (GFAN) and the Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA).
