NR PROJECT presents the group exhibition Unforgettable (you!) and series of Talks « Tattooing and its impacts in society », focusing on themes that connect tattooing with human trafficking, scarification, memory, science and body confidence. The exhibition opens on the 17th of November at 5pm with a roundtable conversation between the artists and special guests, a live performance and a music concert.

Unforgettable (you!) through the work of Christophe Beauregard, Joana Choumali, Rebecca D. Harris, Steve Hines, Chaim Machlev aka DotstoLines, Chibuike Uzoma and the american organisation Survivor’s INK, aims to divulge how tattooing and body marks can impact lives and increase self-confidence on multiple levels.

The artist Joana Choumali presents “Hââbré, the last generation” about a fading generation of abidjan citizens with facial scarifications, that are one of the last witnesses of an african bygone era. Her work is juxtaposed with Chibuike Uzoma’s self-portrait, which discloses another reality in west africa – a society that continues to practice body scarification, although it is slowly loosing it’s sacred value. Consequently representing a generation that is not always proud of possessing them, provoking contradictory feelings as fetish and diabolical acts versus a process of love and care for their children.

Another layer that this exhibition brings into discussion is human branding and its implications on people’s lives, via the first public presentation of Survivor’s Ink’s Archive – an american organisation founded by the late Jennifer Kempton (4/20/82 – 5/18/17), a survivor of human trafficking who used her experience to promote awareness and to advocate for social change. this archive will disclose powerful and real stories of human trafficking survivors and how tattoo art can have a bigger purpose in someone’s skin.

About the curator Inês Valle:

Inês Valle is a transcultural curator, researcher, arts writer, artist and photographer, specializing in aboriginal contemporary arts, global curating, international social engaged art practices and intercultural dialogues. Believing in the international, interdisciplinary preservation of exchange of ideas, she has initiated and participated in several projects that aim to stimulate a global – interchanging – and – understanding of the conceptual notion of the ‘other’, not to insert or present alternatives to dominant hegemonic narratives, but to interrupt, interrogate and investigate the effects and possibilities of the unheard and the omitted ones. Valle holds a BA in Visual arts and a MA in Curatorial studies both at the Faculty of Fine arts of the University of Lisbon. Founder of “the Cera project”, a transcultural exchange platform that stimulates a dialogue in art, music, sound, performance and science with and about the southern hemisphere’s narratives. Currently, she is the curator of NR project in London, one of the first art spaces focusing on tattooing.

About the artists (selection)

JOANA CHOUMALI (IVORY COAST)

Joana Choumali, born in 1974, is a visual artist and photographer based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. She studied graphic arts in Casablanca (morocco) and worked as an art director in an advertising agency before embarking on her photography career. She works mainly on conceptual portraits, mixed media and documentary photography. Much of her work focuses on Africa, and what she, as an African, learns about the innumerable cultures around her. In 2014, she won the popCap 14 Award and the emerging photographer LensCulture Award. In 2016, she received the magnum emergency Grant Foundation, and the Fourthwall Books Award in South Africa. In 2017, she exhibited her series “translation” and “adorn” at the pavilion of the Ivory Coast during the 57th Venice International Biennale. Her work has been published in the international press, including among others: CNN, New York times, el pais (spain), Le monde, the Guardian, Forbes magazine, the Huffington post, marie Claire magazine australia, elle south africa, Geo magazine, Le temps (switzerland), La stampa, and the Internazionale (Italy).

CHIBUIKE UZOMA (NIGERIA)

Chibuike Uzoma (Nigeria) is a multidisciplinary artist working with photography, painting, drawing and text. His art projects are nourished by life and the reciprocals between humans and the human condition, especially those referencing Nigeria, Africa and the African Diaspora. through a layered and an exceptional organic process, he creates visual languages to portray both new perspectives and alternative narratives. Regarded as a social commentator, Uzoma’s artworks engage global dialogues and issues of contemporary politics, post-colonialism, migration, thought, urbanization as well as themes related to religious and ethnic conflicts. Uzoma was born in Port Harcourt. He holds a BA degree in painting from the University of Benin.

www.nrproject.co.uk