CURATORIAL STATEMENT
Presented at ART X Lagos, Residues of Past Encounters II centers on a weathered canoe, a vessel associated with passage and displacement. Its presence evokes the histories of forced migration and exploitation that underpin the transatlantic slave trade, while opening onto contemporary forms of human trafficking and forced labour. These connections are not presented as equivalent experiences, but as distinct histories linked by enduring structures of coercion, movement and economic exploitation.
Residues of Past Encounters II builds on Dike’s earlier installations Waka-Into-Bondage: The Last ¾ Mile (2008) and Residues of Past Encounters I (2025),at CCA Lagos, extending her exploration of the transatlantic slave trade and its continuing repercussions. The installation approaches these histories through fragments and material traces, considering how their effects continue to shape contemporary social and economic relations.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Ndidi Dike is a British-Nigerian sculptor and multidisciplinary artist living and working in Lagos, Nigeria. Born and raised in London, she later relocated to Nigeria, where she graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1984 with a BA in Fine and Applied Arts, specialising in Mixed Media Painting.
Across sculpture, installation, photography, lens-based media and archival material, Dike examines pre-colonial and postcolonial histories, extractive economies, migration, memory, environmental justice and global inequality. Her practice explores the relationships between material culture, trade and commodification, with particular attention to the structures of exploitation underpinning global resource economies.
Dike’s work has been presented internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, Mercosul Biennial, Dakar Biennale and Lagos Biennial, as well as at Tate Modern, London, and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Selected solo exhibitions include Waka-Into-Bondage: The Last ¾ Mile, Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (2008); State of the Nation, National Museum, Onikan, Lagos (2016); In the Guise of Resource Control, Villa Vassilieff, Paris (2017); Working Through an Impasse, Art Twenty-One, Lagos (2021); and Rare Earth Rare Justice, Secession, Vienna, and Färgfabriken, Stockholm (2026).