Feature - Earth Matters Around the Web: Charles Okereke

Earth Matters, the blog for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art's "Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa"exhibition featured Charles Okereke in August 2013. Read an excerpt from the post below:

Earth Matters Around the Web: Charles Okereke

Today’s post will feature Nigerian born artist Charles Okereke,  one of the artists featured on the Earth Matter’s exhibition.  Okereke  works with different media ranging from photography, video and  sculpture. He also writes, acts and directs plays and drama pieces.

Charles Okereke

Earth Matters features works from Okereke’s Canal People Series which you can view by visiting his blog at http://charles-okereke.blogspot.com/

Once a Blue World, from the Canal People series below is currently showing in Earth Matters.

Charles Okereke
b. 1966, Nigeria
Once a Blue World, from the Canal People series
2009 (2013 exhibition print)
Chromira print on archival paper
44.5 x 59.7 cm (17 1/2 x 23 ½ in.)
Collection of the artist

 About "Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa"

With approximately 100 diverse works of art, as well as, for the first time at the Smithsonian, three works of land art in the Smithsonian’s historic Enid A. Haupt Garden, Earth Matters will be on exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art from April 22^nd, 2013 through January 5^th, 2014. (For more info, visit http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/earthmatters/index.html.)

Featuring artworks from ca. 1800 to the contemporary moment, Earth Matters explores the direct, profound, and visually mediated relationship between individuals and communities and the land upon which they live, work, and frame their days. The issues that define our era – territorial dispute, environmentalism – have at their heart the human relationship to the earth.

Visit the website of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art here.

Visit the Earth Matters blog here