Onyeka Igwe

28 Sep-14 Dec 2024

PV 27 Sep 2024, 6.30-8.30pm

Onyeka Igwe, history is a living weapon in yr hand, 2024. Credit: history is a living weapon in yr hand, Onyeka Igwe, 2024, Bonington Gallery. Photo by Arcadia Missa.

Overview

The exhibition takes London in 1947 as its starting point. At this time, London was a hub of radical anti-colonial activity with artists, activists and intellectuals Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Sylvia Wynter, C.L.R. James, Kwame Nkrumah and George Padmore all spending time in the city. The exhibition’s centrepiece, 'A Radical Duet' (2023) imagines figures from this milieu meeting and coming together to discuss the end of British colonialism. In Igwe’s film, two women, both fighting for independence but from different generations, decide to put their fervour and imagination into writing a revolutionary play. The film depicts this process, and envisages what that play would look like, if staged today.

Artists