Counter Moves
Onyeka Igwe’s anticolonial kinetics
Stay updated with breaking news from Specialised Technique. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
“PULSE, PULSE, PULSE, PULSE, hold, and pause,” a voice-over evenly calls out as monochrome footage rapidly intercuts between a black woman alone on a stretch of grass—arms out and angular, the top of her body pulling toward the ground and her legs partially bent—and stick-figure notations of her dance. Minutes later, a clip of women swirling the voluminous white clothes tied at their waists unfolds, instead, at a mesmerizing and unsettling molasses pace. This archival footage is punctuated with intertitles: “What happened when you looked down the lens? Or did they tell you not to?”...
Artist Onyeka Igwe's three films inspired by the Aba Women’s War of 1929, are now on display at MoMa PS1 in Queens, New York.