‘egwu ọnwụ Ahamefula’ is the first stage in the ‘Egwu Onwu: Mixtape for the Dead’ (MDG) series as part of the ‘Obi gbawara’m//My Heart Shattered or What happens after I die?’ (OGB) project.
Created and facilitated by multimedium cultural artist and producer Nkeiruka Oruche, OGB is a multimedia performance, & cultural reclamation project reactivating the practice of death and grief performance from the Igbo Ọdịnanị & Ọmenala tradition.
Drawing from pre-colonial Igbo traditional forms, as a point of departure, MDG will recreate & reimagine grief songs, dances, and poems remixed with Pan Afro-urban forms to explore the questions How do we hold pain, grief & joy for ourselves & as a community? How do we define & self-determine our liberatory practices? And how do we remember who we are in societies designed to make us forget?
I developed all of the graphic materials. Everything started here, with a research on the Nsibidi a system of symbols developed by the Ekpe secret society that traversed the southeastern part of Nigeria. Based on that we developed our on symbols, mixing and matching to create our own universe for the play.
Along with my great partner Nkei Oruche, I created the graphic materials for digital and print publications, costumes for the play, panel for the photoshoot, accessories, and the set design.
A big shoutout to the one and only Nkeiruka Oruche, who created and facilitated the performance, guided and trusted me through the process.