Arit Etukudo

Arit Emmanuela is a Nigerian American experimental storyteller whose practice focuses on the ideas of identity and the life experience. She recreates the human body in various sculptural forms to symbolize the complexity of identity and tell the stories of the ways we exist. She has a background in filmmaking, theater, creative writing and photography which she combines to create image heavy installation pieces. Recent exhibitions include: Nottingham Contemporary (Group show), Art All Night DC (Group show). Arit is currently receiving her MFA at Nottingham Trent University.

MotherTongue

MotherTongue is an installation piece that combines sculpture and moving images. The work is about our lingual identities. The mother tongue being the first language a person learns to speak in a way is the language a person feels most honest in. This piece discusses the disassociation created between self and culture when a language is cut off from future generations as well as the languages of regret, loss, shame that come from this loss. English (the language that taught me regret), Ibibio-Efik (the language I never had and that I will removed from future generations), French (the language that I used to hide my shame), and Spanish (the language that revealed pain to me) are used as a pillars for the passage of my lingual identities. The work is an atmospherically haunting piece that includes the use of poetry, song and light to transport the viewers into its story.

http://www.instagram.com/Arit_Emmanuela

UKYA PROJECTS:

UKYA City Takeover: Nottingham 2019