Chibuike Uzoma: Troubling the Water with “No Victor, No Vanquished” in Lagos Photo Festival

By Chinezim Moghalu

 

Chibuike Uzoma, "Untitled", from the series, "No Victor, No Vanquished, 2018. 

 

“No Victor, No Vanquished”, part of the ongoing 9^th edition of Lagos Photo Festival exhibition, is a body of work by Chibuike Uzoma, which forms part of his ongoing project titled “Museum of Burnt Things”. It is an ambitious and laborious project that reconciles photography with painting in a close-up intertwined sequence. This is the second part of a three part project, which is showing at the yearly festival in Lagos, presently.

The work takes a departure from the term “no victor, no vanquished”, an assertion by Major Yakubu Gowon, who was the head of state during the devastating and violent Nigerian-Biafra civil war that began after seven years of Nigeria’s independence from the British and lasted for three years (1967-1970). This was a statement he made at the end of the war which indicated that there was no victor nor vanquished during such war that was fought between Nigeria’s attacking military forces and embattled southeastern Nigerians, who were agitating for secession from Nigeria, for a country named Republic of Biafra. Such statement by Gowon, by apparent indications, was a prevarication intended to produce normalcy within socio-political affairs of the country. The aftermath of such would culminate to an unsettled and troubling conflicts leading to marginalization, incarcerations, underrepresentation, nepotism, deaths and prejudice; and unending agitations executed by predominantly (Igbo) southeastern Nigerians.

As an artist and thinker, Chibuike Uzoma has tactfully and masterfully enacted performative photography depictions and paintings, an artistic manifestation of his understanding of the term “no victor, vanquished”, which serves as a spectacle into a topical issue at the heart and epicenter of Nigeria that is plaguing the country’s growth in recent years: Biafra condition. In achieving this, Uzoma employs archival materials from the Nigerian-Biafra civil war as well as the historical iconography of WWI and WWII.

Through astute use and conceptual manipulation of the photography medium and painting, Chibuike creatively troubles the water of Nigeria’s sinister with this ongoing body of work that redirects one to an overtly evading, obliterative issue which is marring the social and political well-being of Nigeria, a re-visitation to Biafra condition, where the title of his project is taken from. Rather than accentuating known and banal realities on the seemingly rehashing matter, Uzoma, upon examining the aftermaths of such haunting war and its obvious unsettled predicaments, instead creates art works that hopes to initiate reconciliation. He vehemently confronts evading individuals on such matter by “raising” eyebrows with a timely, pertinent work.  

Chibuike Uzoma, "Unicorn", oil and oil stick on canvas 2018

Uzoma’s multimedia installation at Lagos Photo Festival encompasses photography (four miniature pictures) and a painting that mediates the photographs. For the photographs, he would achieve such by staging creative poses in which he meticulously photographs himself and a few other males in a seemingly disguised rendition executed in an evidently exterior staircase, which pays homage to his exquisite artistic ingenuity and dexterity. Each picture has a stamp and marker impression inscribed on its surface, which appeals to the artist’s sensibility. The resulting photographs suggest the vanquished.

With the intent of encouraging reconciliation with this body of work, one might ponder if its aim would be actualized with regards to activities playing out of such problematic matter in Nigeria. Over the years, known forces, in more than one ways, have enacted insurmountable constructs geared towards dissuading and nullifying efforts by southeasterners (Igbos) to lead Nigeria- which is inextricably linked to unaccommodating conflicts, distress, marginalization and hatred, to mention a few- and at the same time working in all ways against referendum or secession which will introduce a soothing pacifying intervention against socio-political hegemony witnessed in Nigeria. That, to me, is the crux of “no victor, no vanquished.”

“Time Has Gone” is the theme for this year’s edition of Lagos Photo Festival. (Lagos Photo Festival is the first and only international arts festival of photography in Nigeria which accentuates dialogues upon multifaceted stories of Africa). Time Has Gone indeed, to engage ways of (solving) dissolving a peculiar and troubling issue in Nigeria: Biafra condition, through means of reconciliation, as Chibuike brilliantly proffers, with his work.

“No Victor, No Vanquished” is curretly showing as part of this year’s Lagos Photo Festival until November 15, 2018.

Based in Ile-Ife and Lagos, Nigeria, Chibuike Uzoma is a quintessential multidisciplinary artist working chiefly across photography, painting, drawing, and text. He holds a B.A. degree in painting from Art department of University of Benin. He is an awardee of the Francis Greenburger Fellowship on Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict.

 

Chinezim Moghalu holds a B.A. degree in Art History from Art department of University of Benin. He is an artist and art critic.