Art History PhD student Osinachi Okafor spent her summer co-curating the “XX Exhibition” at the Awka Museum in Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria earlier in July. The annual exhibition celebrates female artists, and this year’s theme was tagged “Repairs,” a theme drawn from the ongoing conversation of repair from the Humanities Research Center at Rice University, with a focus on responses from Nigerian female artists.
Female artists have long been at the forefront of exploring the theme of "repair" through their works by utilizing their unique perspectives to address personal and collective experiences. Female contemporary artists like Nnenna Okore (1975) use recycled materials and fragmented images to comment on ecological and societal breakdowns, emphasizing the potential for renewal and creating new, meaningful forms from discarded elements.
Awka Museum's invitation to join conversations about repair resonates deeply with the contributions of these artists, who often engage with repair not only as a physical act but as a profound metaphor for healing and transformation.
