Otobong Nkanga

Otobong Nkanga (1974, Kano, Nigeria) is a visual artist and live performer currently based in Paris and Antwerp. She makes works about the relationships between, and the exploitation of, the landscape, people and work. Plants, stones, dust, gloss and archive material are recurring elements in her complex installations. She began her art studies at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria and continued at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. In 2008, she obtained a master’s degree in performing art from Dasarts, Amsterdam.

Since graduating, she has exhibited widely. She participated in Documenta 14, several biennials, among them the biennial in São Paolo and Lyon, and her work has been displayed in Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Tate Modern in London and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. In 2015, Nkanga won the ‘Yanghyun Prize’ and in 2017 the ‘Belgian Art Prize’. The latter is awarded every two years to a leading mid-career artist from Belgium. The international jury praised the artist for exploring and exposing social and geographic changes in her work.