Hauntings of Biafra
In collaboration with the PhD Candidate Chichi Ayalogu, this exhibition deploys works of montage that pair seemingly disparate images in order to complicate and extend the legacy of the Biafran struggle for independence at the heart of the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70). We aim both to unravel the historical complexities of collaborations between Biafran leaders and Western agents and to foreground, today, the market relations between the secessionist leaders and Western publicists who contribute to a crisis of mass starvation and suffering. In doing so, we adopt an aesthetic of Africanfurutity that showcases what Sakiru Adebayo terms Africa’s “continuous past” to define the continuity of crises in postcolonial Africa. Deployed here to signify the postwar haunting resonance of the Biafran crisis, Africanfuturity offers novel possibilities in discussing the arc of Biafran history.