A group of artists is bringing Nigerian movie making to a new audience with a New York exhibition paying tribute to the “Nollywood” film industry.
The exhibition is called “Sharon Stone in Abuja,” after a 2003 Nollywood film, and is taking place at Location One gallery in the Soho district of New York.
Its creator, Zina Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian-British artist and filmmaker, said: “Sharon Stone in Abuja pays homage to Nollywood. It looks at Nollywood narrative conventions and explores African emotional landscape.”
The exhibition contains striking photographs and films inspired by the themes and style of Nollywood, and includes an installation of a living room decked out in Nollywood style.
Saro-Wiwa, who created the living room with New York based artist Mickalene Thomas, described the living room as the “ultimate Nollywood landscape.”
She said: “Living rooms are very important in Nollywood. A lot of the action takes place in the living room and it’s consumed there because Nollywood is a straight-to-video form.”
The living room has photographs on the walls and Nollywood films playing on a flat-screen television. The photographs are called “Two Wives,” by Thomas, and show two fictional wives of one Nigerian “oga,” or big man. One is the first wife, and the other a house-girl, recently elevated to wifely status.
Visitors are invited to sit on the sofas and “feel at home.”
Saro-Wiwa pointed out that the living room contained imported plastic furnishings, flat lighting and a conspicuous lack of “African objects.”
She added: “It has a relationship with the look and feel of Nollywood, which is synthetic and plastic but aspirational at the same time.”
