Residency and exhibition
Uli Will Go To Heaven
Eight wooden bowls decorated during meditation in a church built as a place to meet angels.
I was interested in how my foremother's body and mural arts were discouraged by Christian missionaries during colonial times. However, I noticed when I was looking at uli archives in the UK that they were largely collected by missionaries.
The work was inspired by the song of the Uli classicists, “Omenani y'eje en'igwe” — tradition will go to heaven.* I collaborated with Woodlands Methodist Church to do a self-initiated residency and exhibition. The space was originally a Swedenborg church, designed as a space for meeting with angels.
During the 40-day project I decorated eight wooden plates with symbols inspired by these arts, using foraged earth pigments. They were created through meditative sessions in the church.
* Documented by Dr Chuu Krydz Ikwuemesi in the article “Eziafo Okaro: An uli woman painter’s tale in the Igbo heritage crisis,” 2016
Swedenborg Society display and earth pigment workshop
The work was shown again in London in 2025, alongside a public workshop making paint from foraged earth.