it felt strange to pay for nigerian food

After a full month of writing, art-making, networking and thinking together, SAVVY Contemporary's artist-in-residence Uche Uzorka will present his art project.

The backbone of SAVVY Contemporary's residency programme is the question of how arts and culture can be thought of beyond geographical and national constraints, and how conventional discourses, perception frames and reception modes of the Western art canon can be reconsidered and redefined. Our residents are encouraged to interact with and relate to local artistic and cultural productions, as well as Berlin’s socio-political, economic and cultural realities, and relay these to their own practices.

Uche Uzorka is a mixed media artist who lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria. Uzorka was born in 1974 in Delta State, Nigeria, and graduated in 2001 from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, majoring in painting. Uzorka’s practice incorporates painting, collage, cutting and pasting, charcoal, and ink drawing in an examination of processes of urban street culture. Uzorka won First Place in the National Art Competition in 2011 for his collaboration with artist Chike Obeagu. His first solo exhibition, Uche Uzorka: The Organic, was held in October 2012 at Goethe-Institut Nigeria in association with the African Artists’ Foundation. Line.Sign.Symbol, Uzorka’s second solo exhibition, was held at the African Artists’ Foundation in January 2013. Other exhibitions include Where were you when I was here?, 2014, Sübkültür Bayreuth Germany, Integration and Resistance, 10th Biennale of Havana, Havana, Cuba, 2010.