Sheila Chukwulozie (Nigeria) explores the politics of “behaving oneself” in a Catholic-colonial body through juxtaposing local rituals, modern technology, traditional myths, and movement styles. She is drawn to exposing internal and consistent dialogues — coded through discipline and punishment and language like “conscience”, “moral compass” or even “The Holy Spirit”.
During her residency, Sheila plans to focus primarily on language (body language and spoken word). She intends to trace her own body for emotions that she feels she has not been allowed or able to express; either because the emotion has been culturally misdiagnosed, legally erased, or perhaps, is simply non-existent in the English canon which has come to be her first language.
Sheila’s performances and installations have been shown in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Czech Republic and the USA. From August 2017- August 2018, she travelled as a Thomas J Watson fellow studying with traditional mask makers and cloth weavers in eight African countries. Currently, she is working on a trans-continental collaboration with her Trinidadian performance partner, Amir Hall. Together they are excavating the stories of “ordinary men” in Nigeria and Trinidad in order to reimagine the biblical classic the Book of Job as a dirge for the post-colonial man.
Residency part of Africa/UK Transforming Art Ecologies, a project by Here, There and Everywhere (HTE) and supported by Arts Council England.
With support from
Here There Everywhere: Africa, a collaborative programme led by New Art Exchange (NAE), Nottingham. Funded by Arts Council England National Lottery Funds
THEMATIC PROGRAMME
Performance as Process:
Season 4
RESIDENCY SEASON
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Please note all artist-in-residence biographies are accurate at the time of their residency. For up-to-date bios please visit the artist’s website.