Otobong Nkanga's 'I dreamt of you in colours' opens at MCBA Lausanne
Otobong Nkanga, Social Consequences V: The Harvest, 2022. Acrylic and stickers on paper, 42 x 29.7 cm. Wim Waumans Collection. © Otobong Nkanga. Photo: courtesy of the artist.
LAUSANNE.—
“For me, it’s interesting to think about deep time and about possibilities, futures. About constellations that are affecting the Earth from outside, and constellations that are affecting the Earth from inside.”
The Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (MCBA) presents a major exhibition dedicated to Otobong Nkanga, whose practice focuses on the connections between ecology, memory and the circulation of resources.
At once a survey and a cross-section of Nkanga’s protean oeuvre from the past thirty years, the exhibition I dreamt of you in colours traces the genealogy of recurring subjects whose visual expression is constantly evolving. Since the late 1990s, following her studies in Nigeria, France and The Netherlands, the artist has been exploring issues relating to mining, the use of the Earth’s resources, and the body in its relationship to space and the land. Nkanga examines complex social, political and material relationships in her multidisciplinary body of work, consisting of drawings, installations, paintings, textiles, photographs, sculptures, ceramics, performances, sound and poetry.
Drawing on her personal history and research, which reflects transhistorical and diverse influences, she creates networks and constellations between humans and landscapes, while addressing the restorative capacity of natural and relational systems. The notion of strata is central to Nkanga’s practice—both in the materiality of her works, and in her way of thinking about the relationships between bodies and the lands they inhabit and transform, and which in turn transform them. The artist simultaneously explores the circulation of materials and goods, of people and their intertwined histories, as well as their exploitation, marked by the residues of violent colonial histories. While questioning memory, she offers the vision of a possible future, inviting us to imagine the interconnectedness of humans and the natural world.
The exhibition is organised by MCBA in collaboration with Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris / Paris Musées.
Exhibition curators
In Lausanne: Nicole Schweizer, curator of contemporary art, MCBA, with Eleonora Del Duca, assistant curator, MCBA
In Paris: Odile Burluraux, curator-in-chief, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris
Otobong Nkanga (b. 1974 in Kano, Nigeria; lives in Antwerp, Belgium, and Uyo, Nigeria) trained at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ifé-Ilé, Nigeria, the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
Her work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, most recently: Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2025); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2024); Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno – Centro Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, Spain (2023); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, United States (2023); Museum Sint-Janshospitaal, Bruges, Belgium (2022); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2021–2022); Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli, Turin, Italy (2021–2022); Villa Arson, Nice, France (2021); Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Hovikodden, Norway (2020–2021); Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2020).
Otobong Nkanga received the Jury’s Special Mention Award at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019). She is the recipient of the Finkenwerder Art Prize (2026), the Zeitz MOCAA Honorary Award for Artistic Excellence (2025), the Nasher Prize for Sculpture (2025), the Golden Afro Artistic Award (2024), an Honorary Doctorate of the University of Antwerp (2024), the Peter-Weiss-Preis, Bochum (2019), the Sharjah Biennale Prize (2019), the Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award (2019), the Ultima Flemish Cultural Prize for the Visual Arts (2018), the Belgian Art Prize (2017) and the Yanghyun Prize (2015).
Publication: Odile Burluraux and Nicole Schweizer (eds), Otobong Nkanga. I dreamt of you in colours, with contributions by Noam Gramlich, Sandrine Honliasso, and Maya Tounta, and a conversation between Otobong Nkanga, Odile Burluraux, and Nicole Schweizer. Paris, Éditions Paris Musée, 2025 (Fr./Eng.). CHF 38. Available at the MCBA Book- and Giftshop, shop.mcba@plateforme.ch
