Nigerian Belgian artist Otobong Nkanga creates tapestries, drawings, videos, sculptures, and performances that feature narratives of wounding and healing, making metaphorical links between the landscape and the traumatized human body. Mapping new paths toward recovery, Nkanga’s work conveys the necessity of acknowledging the violence caused by exploiting natural and human resources if we are to overcome the damaging legacy of extraction under colonialism and global capitalism. This small collection of works in the Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery is part of the Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art, a statewide series of exhibitions and performances coordinated by consulting curator María Magdalena Campos-Pons of Vanderbilt University’s Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice that explores the theme of repair and healing, particularly with regards to the Global South and its colonial history.

Nkanga has exhibited in such venues as Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Centre Pompidou, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Moderna Museet, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Tate Modern, Tate St Ives, and Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. Her work has been included in such group exhibitions as the 58th Venice Biennale, documenta 14, 13th Biennale de Lyon, 31st Bienal de São Paulo, and 8th Berlin Biennale.

Organized by the Frist Art Museum

This collection of works is part of the Tennessee Triennial for Contemporary Art, a program of Tri-Star Arts.

Lead sponsor

Funded in part by

Gordon CAP Gallery Fund

With additional support from

Presented in part by