WANA UDOBANG: DIRTY LAUNDRY
curated by Naomi Edobor

“Dirty Laundry” is an immersive installation created with poems screen printed on fabric and hanging from laundry lines held up by wooden pegs along with video art that explores issues around womanhood, sexual and gender violence, feminine agency, healing and re-imagination.

The hanging poems tell many personal stories for the viewer to experience whilst walking through the space, a physical representation of the metaphor “hanging your dirty laundry in public”. The installation will also feature a wall where the audience can write and hang up their own stories and poems as a participatory and interactive element. A sort of purge if you will.

At the core of this work is using words to break silence and shame we carry from experiences that have often been inflicted by society and it’s culture of silence.

CURATOR’S STATEMENT:

Dirty Laundry interconnects personal narratives, histories, experiences, and imaginaries as a form of catharsis for the poet.

“To wash one’s dirty laundry in public” is often used with respect to shame. In this case, however, the poet intends to create a platform for difficult discussions to happen. It is an investigation of what it means to be unashamed, with poems that range in scope from intimate to epic.

Through a non-exhaustive selection of poems, the dirty laundry installation includes 20 ink-printed poems on linen cloth and video installation of poetry, presenting a body of work that transports the observer through a vacuum of personal experiences. The poet invites the listener and the viewer to examine her journey. The result is that the installation becomes a physical interface, a space of translation, revelation, and an enactment of the processes of sharing.

The starting point is to understand that self-revelation takes some effort. As such, the introspective interpretation of self through this art form magnifies thoughts, feelings, emotions, presence of the mind, and excavations of personal memories.