Artists talk with Taiye Idahor and Godfrey Ekhator

In September and October, Taiye Idahor, a visual artist from Lagos, and the historian Godfrey Ekhator from Benin-City are fellows at the Ethnological Museum. Their fellowships are part of the so-called “Collaborative Museum”, a project to strengthen international collaborative work within the Museum.

Taiye Idahor’s new works tie in with the themes of her collages already shown in the exhibition. While these already referred to questions of her own background, connected with the female presence and power within the historic and contemporary Benin, her current project aims speculatively at past events and imagines alternative presences and desirable futures.

Similarly, Godfrey Ekhator, Research Fellow at the Institute for Benin Studies and Principal Researcher in the Digital Benin project, looks at the ecological knowledge associated with historical Benin art. He focuses on the significance of animal representations, which so far have only been discussed superficially. Not only are animals (and plants) important carriers of meaning in the complex visual language of historical works, they also bear witness to extractive practices since colonisation. His perspective will be present in the current exhibition, as will Taiye Idahor’s artistic work.