AYọ̀ AKíNWáNDé

october 1th 2020 until december 31 2020

Ayọ̀ Akínwándé is an artist, activist, curator, and writer from Lagos. With an academic training in Architecture, his oeuvre is engineered towards a social critique of the built environment. He works across lens-based media, texts, sculpture, installation, sound, and performance.

Akínwándé co-curated the inaugural 2017 Lagos Biennial. His works, and art writings have been featured in publications around the world. In 2019, he presented solo exhibitions in Nigeria, Scotland, and Cuba for the 13th Bienal De La Habana.

Akínwándé is a recipient of the 2020 Edith-Russ-Haus Media Art Award, and the 2019 Place Publique prize by the Fonderie Darling, Montréal.

Plans for my Artist Residency at Gleis70 in Switzerland

During my residency in Gleis70, I will be working with photography and performance in a continuation of my ongoing engagement on the subject of people, politics, and power.

For the photography projects, I will be using self-portraiture as a means to explore my dialogue with issues of identity, race, politics, and power. Frederick Douglas’ 19th century self-portraits were a tool for the campaign against slavery, and other contemporary artists like Samuel Fosso, borrowed from this and used self-portraiture in a performative way to subvert cultural stereotypes.

For my series, I will be exploring what it means to use self-portraiture in a way that speaks not only to this archive of hatred, and prejudices, but using landscape and pop culture as a way to engage, and contribute to this archive of black portraiture in the 21st century.

My performance piece titled “AmeriKKKa is Watching the World” uses the current U.S elections as a reference point in my engagement with the global conversation around politics, people, and power, in a democratic framework.