Ije Eze (2017 - Ongoing)
Engaging various natural environments, animist mythologies surrounding ancestral visitations, and intergenerational trauma, the new series of work Ije | Eze by artist Nanci Amaka is a supernatural expression of vulnerability, mortality, and metamorphosis.
In this work, the artist explores the experience of losing her mother – Ije – to violence as a child and the psychological implications of a life lived in mourning. Beginning at the onset of the artist’s pregnancy, the work has been years in the making. Through a series of performances and audio recordings, Amaka actively engaged with emotions surrounding her mother’s death and, the impending birth of her first child. After the birth of her own daughter –Eze – Amaka incorporated her into the meditations, evolving the performances from ruminations on a past filled with trauma to a more active acceptance of the present moment. The artist standing as a pillar between death and life. The work is at once intimate and primal, with a pervasive sense of mystery and the eternal.