March 2024 AIR: Anwulika Anigbo
Anwulika brings dignity and power to enhance liberation
untitled, 2021
Hey Anwulika! We are so pumped to have you join the lab in March. Can you tell us a little about how you arrived at somatic practices and the exploration of self-determination in your work?
Hello Latitude Team! I am really excited to join you in the lab this March. Thank you for having me. For me and many people I know, becoming disconnected from your body is nearly unavoidable. It is more a matter of when and how long. Maybe even more the awareness of disassociation. This disconnection seems pretty necessary to get through a modern life but I think this also gets in the way of self-determination. There are specific ways I see capitalism specifically do this to us, but somatic practices are a way to reclaim myself and explore what I know intuitively. More intuition went hand in hand with a greater interest in self-determination. It helps that self-determination comes up often in black queer feminist thought, my absolute favorite genre of literature.
Your work really touches on the elements of humanity and takes the viewer into another setting. How do you think about transporting the audience into your photographs?
I think of sound, or moreso the absence of sound, and the muting of colors, black and white are absolutely colors but the shades of grey in BW photography make it really special because the spectrum is clear. Both have the ability to distort time and calm the senses, both are important for my ability to drop into my highest sense. I love photography because meaning is made instantly, so you can just sit with it. We can sit with it.
untitled, 2020
The use of foreground, background and focus is really significant in your work, is this something that you plan or think about before or after an image is taken?
I think about the before scene as a whole before I bring the camera to my face but foreground, background and focus is most often what I am trying to trust myself to get right with each attempt. For me the first decision is the frame of the photo; then foreground, background and focus make the meaning. Because I work with film, I also have to trust the chemistry which has everything to do with the light, my understanding of the light and my camera. I love this, I have not mastered this so it can be a rollercoaster but that is part of the process. The process is what I want most.
When I look at your work, there is a sense of dignity and power you are portraying. Can you talk about if or how those elements pertain to your ideas of liberation?
I think you answered it. When we say liberation we mean we want a sense of dignity and power. I hope that my images are tender, it is the only sure path to liberation.
How do you stay inspired and in tune with your process to keep creating such meaningful work?
I had very dark periods in life, I wasn't sure I would make it to this place. I am deeply aware of how improbable, how destined my life has been and I am grateful. Not only for my twists and turns but the twists and turns of the world around me.
Rahsaan Ripping Meat, 2021
Anwulika Anigbo
Anwulika Anigbo (b. Nigeria 1987) is a Chicago-based artist tracing the historical and somatic roots of everyday life as it is practiced within blackness through imagery and processes. Her work chronicles and investigates self-determination, presence, knowledge production, and memory. At any given moment we stand at the intersection of histories, embodying and accessing more than what we have personally experienced. How far back and forward can individual and collective memory take the process of self-determination? Anigbo's work uses familiar personal moments and cultural references to access somatic memory and histories of self-determination layered onto our most rudimentary and interior moments. She uses deep embodiment to make meaning at the intersections of life by rooting her practice in creation as a continuous process of personal and domestic liberation.
Anwulika’s work has been exhibited at The Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (South Korea), Chicago Artist Coalition(Chicago), EXPO Chicago with FOR FREEDOMS (Chicago) and the Chicago Athletic Association (Chicago). She was recently a 2022-23 Fellow with the Economic Security Project, the December 2022 and January 2023 Artist in Residence at Chicago Athletic Association, a 2021-22 Artist in Residence at the Chicago Artist Coalition, and a 2022 3Arts Ignite Fund Awardee. Her work is included in the collection at 21c Museum, Ryan Lee Gallery, and private collections.