Kanbi Projects in collaboration with Tafeta gallery is pleased to present Jay Walk, a solo exhibition of works by US-based Nigerian artist Austin Uzor.
Jaywalk, a term coined in the 1920s in the US as part of propaganda led by the automotive industry to ridicule pedestrians crossing roads at the wrong place. Targeted mostly at those who migrated from the countryside to the cities, who were dazzled by the wonders of urbanisation in 20th century America.
Between 1870 and 1920, America witnessed the largest mass movement of people from rural America and across the world to American cities and by 1920, more Americans lived in cities than in rural areas for the first time in the US history. Since then, this pattern of migration as a result of urbanisation and globalisation has shaped modern society: people moving from rural areas to cities, from far flung parts of the world to major Western cities either for economic opportunities or through forced displacements. And as they come with their hopes and aspiration and cultural norms, they are confronted by the written and unwritten rules that frame the boundaries of their possibilities in their host communities.
In the context of the exhibition, Uzor use the term jaywalk to interrogate the multiplicity of mass movement: mass migration, religious exodus and processions and how the movement of people, across borders and public spaces depending on the controls and lack of enforced by the state, and community shape the perception and collective experience of society regarding what is right or wrong, what is truth or lie, what is an acceptable norm.
Exploring recurring themes of religion and migration through the intersectionality of contemporary acceptability, Uzor's new body of work specifically addresses memories of personal iconographic spirituality and passages enveloped in truth, lies, and rituals through time. Uzor reflects on his time growing up in a predominantly Catholic community in the Niger-Delta region in the southern part of Nigeria; his experience of religious processions - uncontrolled mass movements of Catholic faithfuls; a religion propagated across southern Nigeria through the migration of Portuguese explorers and missionaries in the 15th century.
Unrestrained due to the lack of rules, enforcement and pedestrian infrastructure, the processions freely launched onto streets impeding traffic, yet this was deemed acceptable in that part of the world. It is this juxtaposition of the differences in societal attitudes that he has experienced in his own personal journey as a Nigerian brought up in Catholicism living in the US that connects the works in the exhibition, while exploring the themes of migration, religion and urbanisation that is central to his practice.
Born in 1991 in Imo State in the eastern part of Nigeria, Uzor obtained his BFA in 2013 from the University of Nigeria Nsukka where he majored in drawing and painting. He moved to the US in 2016 and completed his MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of North Texas (2021) where he was also a Teaching Fellow. Now a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Painting Division at Alfred University New York, Uzor has exhibited locally and internationally.
