Social Practice Artist, Wilfred Ukpong to Empower Akwa Ibom Youths with Sustainable Environmental Art and Film Project
dr wilfred ukpong |
In an effort to bridge the boundaries
between art and social life, multi-disciplinary social practice artist Dr
Wilfred Ukpong is set for one of the most important private individual art
project in Nigeria.
The renowned Oxford-based Nigerian scholar returns home after several years abroad with Blazing Century 1, an innovative social
art project that is focused on environmental sustainability and youth
empowerment and development.
For Ukpong, his works of arts are beyond
just aesthetics, but that of creating direct impact on the society, hence
becoming an intervention system, especially for communities where oil
explorations are being carried out.
Asides the damage done by oil spillage, the
environment is littered with giant self-floating hose deployed between oilrig
and FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) Vessel or oil tanker for
offloading crude oil. Blazing Century Project will help clean the environment
by recycling and repurposing these materials through the art objects.
Blazing Century will help clean the
environment by recycling these materials through the various works created for
the film, performance, and art exhibition aspects of the project.
This will be achieved by engaging a group
of youths who will be trained to create artworks, props and costumes for the
film, as this will serve as the empowerment part of the project. Already, some
young persons have been trained in Ukpong’s Blazing Century Studios in aspects
of performance, sewing, make up, design, sculpting since the inception of
Blazing Century in 2010. In the long run provide the youth participants with a
means of livelihood and themselves and their families.
Hence, the setting up of the Art Future
Lab, a creative experimental art space will be situated in Akwa Ibom and Lagos
states and possibly across the Niger-Delta States, using a range of salvaged
recycled materials from industrial waste in his model process he describe as
“environmental sustainability through adaptive repurposing”.
bci finished installation piece, for exhibition |
‘BC1: Future World’, the projects art, film
and sound installation exhibition will be shown on a floating barge compartment
– designed by the artist – in a coastal shore location in Eket, Akwa Ibom also
in the Marina Waters in Lagos Island, featuring fifty rare innovative artworks
produced between 2012 and 2016. The
artworks are made with a range of waste plastic materials salvaged from the oil
and gas sector during Ukpong’s environmental clean-up workshops in the
Niger-Delta.
The show will be complemented with a series
of performance art events catalogue publication, poetry readings and talks that
will offer an interesting space for reflection, learning, dialogue and
entertainment. Other parts of this creative initiative includes a workshop
(Youth of Nigeria as Artists of the Future), music/sound project (Red and Black
Album), feature film (Rebirth), art exhibition (Future World), performance
actions (Rebirth of a Century), and poetry (Bound by Blood).
The performance part of the project,
“Rebirth of a Century” was presented as a two days’ street intervention during
the 56th Venice Biennale in Italy last May.
Prince Simeon
Chief publicist, Hypestation PR
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