Room 15, 2nd floor, European Cultural Center (ECC), Palazzo Mora Strada Nova, 3659, 30121 Venezia VE, Italy
A wà ńbẹ̀
A celebration of community and culture
20 April - 24 November 2024
Shenjobi aims to take the audience on an immersive multisensory journey with her latest body of work. She culturally translates the traditional Owambe party through a series of textile installations, sound design, film, photography, and paintings.
Nigerian multidisciplinary artist Orry Shenjobi (b. 1997) proudly presents A wà ńbẹ̀, a dazzling new body of work that serves as a documentation and historicization of the distinctly Nigerian Owambe (pronounced oh-waam-beh) party and its enduring cultural significance. “Owambes are more than just parties; they are like a spiritual experience,” says Shenjobi. “It’s about so much more than having a good time. We, as a people, go through so much in life that we truly deserve these moments of balance and celebration.” As a foreigner exhibiting in Venice, Shenjobi is extending a warm welcome into her artistic and cultural repertoire to Foreigners Everywhere, which is notably the title of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia that serves as the backdrop against which the European Cultural Centre (ECC) is hosting this seventh edition of the “Personal Structures” contemporary art exhibition. With a growing body of work that has evolved from two-dimensional oil on canvas paintings to intricately meticulous mixed media pieces incorporating three-dimensional elements, this chapter of Shenjobi’s artistic practice functions as an homage to the boisterous Owambe parties Nigerians are notorious for and the equally boisterous people in their attendance.
This latest addition to the artist’s oeuvre is presented in accordance with the three themes of “Personal Structures”: Time is expressed in the artist’s signature collage paintings and bricolage photographs; Space is aptly represented by site-specific installations mirroring the interior of Owambe parties, and; Existence is portrayed through an original short film. Meanwhile, these three elements of the exhibition are seamlessly woven together with sound and smell to create a multisensory experience that lingers in the museum of memory for exhibition attendees. This medley of mediums, metaphors and motifs also symbolically represents the merger of the material (physical) and immaterial (metaphysical) at the heart of Owambe culture. The show title, A wà ńbẹ̀, which translates from Yoruba (a language native to southwestern Nigeria and spoken in several other parts of West Africa) as “we are there” is both a statement of celebration and reconciliation; a celebration (homecoming) of how far people of African descent have come and a reconciliation (homegoing) of hitherto untold Afro-diasporic stories. Indeed, the artist is present in Venice, as is their culture on this global stage.
Ultimately, Shenjobi is inviting foreigners everywhere (at the Biennale and elsewhere) to carefully consider Owambe and its intrinsic act of celebration as an equally cultural and existential phenomenon that—like its host city of Venice whose many parts are linked by countless bridges—is itself a bridge between and beyond Time, Space and Existence; a meeting and mediating point, to not only meet to be merry but more importantly to gather as a global community to mediate the past and future through the lens of the present from a uniquely contemporary African point of view. “It's about how we all come together, regardless of our backgrounds and tribes, to celebrate the sheer joy of life,” says Shenjobi.
CREDITS
Orry Shenjobi
Artist and Creative Director
Usen Esiet
Curator
Yinka Bernie
Sound installation
Suleiman Ismaila
Textile designer
Temi Shenjobi
Artist Management
Muna Nzeribe
Exhibition flyer design
Andrea Ferro Photography
Photographer / Videographer
SHORT FILM CREDITS
Orry Shenjobi (Creative Director), Ramsey Ariguzor (Camera Assistant), Femi Lawson (Script Writer), Ekene Amaonwu (Editor), Ireti Olutayo (Narrator), Moti Ogunsina (Sound Engineer), Yinka Bernie (Sound Engineer), and Pelumi Oshilagun (Editor)
PRESS
WORKS ON VIEW
“It's about how we all come together, regardless of our backgrounds and tribes, to celebrate the sheer joy of life,”
'Circa 2024. STUDIO ỌRRY