Zina Saro-Wiwa: Did You Know We Taught Them How to Dance?

Synopsis

'did You Know We Taught Them How To Dance?' Is The First Solo Museum Presentation Of Works By British-nigerian Video Artist And Filmkaker Zina Saro-wiwa. Featuring Video Installations, Photographs, And A Sound Installation Produced In The Niger Delta Region Of Southeastern Nigeria From 2013-2015, The Exhibition Uses Folklore, Masquerade Traditions, Religious Practices, Food And Nigerian Popular Aesthetics To Test Art's Capacity To Transform And To Envision New Concepts Of Environment And Environmentalism. Engaging Niger Delta Residents Both As Subjects And Collaborators, Zina Saro-wiwa Cultivates Strategies Of Psychic Survival And Performance, Underscoring The Complex And Expressive Ways In Which People Live In An Area Historically Fraught With The Politics Of Energy, Labor And Land. Known For Decades For Corruption And Envrionmental Degradation, The Niger Delta Is Also A Verdant Place, An Abundant Food Producer As Well As Provider Of Crude Oil And Natural Gas To The Entire Globe. Full Inscribed Within The Niger Delta While Addressing The Global Circulation Ofenergy Capital, Saro-wiwa Develops Narraitve Devices That Render Environmental And Emotional Ecosystems Inseparable. Guest Forward / Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa -- Food Is Ready / Amy L. Powell -- Afropolitan In A State Of Grace / Taiye Selasi -- Eden If We Dare / Stephanie Lemenager -- Interview / Chika Okeke-agulu, Zina Saro-wiwa -- Plates -- The Mangrove Banquet / Zina Saro-wiwa -- Checklist Of The Exhibition -- Artist's Biography. Amy L. Powell ; Contributors, Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa [and Three Others] ; Editor, Maria Bailey. Catalog Of An Exhibition Co-organized By Blaffer Art Museum, University Of Houston, And Krannert Art Museum And Kinkead Pavilion, University Of Illinois At Urbana-champaign, Held At Blaffer Art Museum From September 26, 2015-march 19, 2016 And At Krannert Art Museum From November 10, 2016-march 25, 2017. Includes Bibliographical References.