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Ifeoma U. Anyaeji

Part-time faculty, Art History

Biography   


Email: ifeoma.anyaeji@concordia.ca
Availability: Friday - by appointment: 5:30 - 6:30 (17:30 - 18:30)
Office: EV 3-782 (EV building, third floor)

I am a Neo-traditional Nigerian artis whose practice embraces the traditional Nigerian (African) environmental and aesthetic concept of reuse and extendingvalue of expended or displaced material objects, using a method and style Ideveloped called Plasto-yarning /Plasto-art. I repurpose discarded non-biodegradable plastic bags with areceding traditional Nigerian hair-plaiting technique, called Threading  (also know as Ikpa Owu – in Igbo language)[1]. The aestheticmetamorphoses of these chosen discarded ubiquitous mediums and craft technique,through repetitive physical manipulation, are usually in form of very instinctive, organicand sometimes conceptual sculptures and installations that reference domestic spaces,furniture, architectural forms, reiterations of my cultural experiences, anddiscourses about the human body. By metaphorically and spontaneously engaging the “old”(most times excludinganticipated conventions of object making), highlighting the mark of the handthrough supposedly menial creative techniques, I am constantly questioning the implications ofour modernity’s: consumptive systems of mass accumulation, waste generationplus attitude to value, cultural assimilation and colonial orientations onbeauty, authenticity and newness (including psychological and material appreciation of African /minority cultures in post-colonial contemporary societies).



[1] Threading is a beautifultraditional hair plaiting technique and an elaborate hair architecturalprocess, also known as African hair threading, which was predominantlypracticed in some West African countries, Nigeria in particular. Sadly the isbecoming an obsolete practice.

 

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