Ifeanyi Awachie

Dissertation

Title: Moving Home: Place, Power, and Past in Transnational Nigerian Women’s Video Installations

Supervisor: Michael Gillespie

My project looks at transnational Nigerian women's video installations, with a focus on the filmmakers and artists Sheila Chukwulozie, Onyeka Igwe, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Zina Saro-Wiwa. The project explores how these filmmakers use video installations, as opposed to theatrical films, to harness movement, both within the frame and in the gallery space, to communicate their artistic projects and generate critical spectatorship.

Bio

Ifeanyi Awachie is a Nigeria-born, Atlanta-raised scholar-practitioner. She is the writer and director of This Thing Is Not for You (2022), produced by WATZS Productions, which has screened at festivals including the New York African Film Festival, the San Francisco Black Film Festival, and the Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival. Ifeanyi is the founder of AFRICA SALON, a contemporary African arts festival. She previously worked as Assistant Curator at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. She has given talks and lectures and sat on panels at The New School, the Slade School of Fine Art, the Royal College of Art, SOAS University of London, Tate Modern, and the University of Groningen. Her writing appears in publications including Seen Journal, Feminist Review, and ASAP/J.