Bio:
Nnaemeka (Emeka) Ekwelum is a transnational, multidisciplinary researcher, artist, and curator. Born and raised in Boston (MA), he recently relocated to Chicago to pursue a Ph.D. in Black Studies at Northwestern University. Emeka’s scholarly and creative interests converge at the intersection of history, critical theory, creative expression, comparative ethnography, and curatorial practice. And as a multi-medium fiber artist, his most recent creative work is informed by aesthetic patterns and decolonial strategies embedded within transnational Black contemporary and craft art practices.
Residency Statment/area of curiosity:
Black people are at war against the pervasiveness and perniciousness of white supremacy and anti-Black violence. While the logic of white supremacy has structured this antagonism on a global scale, the specific ways in which Black people in the United States have experienced this antagonism, particularly during this COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, has overwhelmed and unsettled me in a profound way. Not only are we at war at a microscopic level (in terms of surviving this pandemic under a nation-state that has left us entirely vulnerable to death), we are also warring against the threat of poverty and the impacts of environmental injustice (e.g. the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan). Furthermore, on top of an already-impossible condition, Black people in the United States continue to war against the persistent force of extrajudicial violence. All of this is happening while U.S. politicians (across the color spectrum of a race) continue to pander meaningless gestures toward Black voters, further exposing a single-party system that masquerades under bipartisan representations of liberty and justice. During this time, Amiri Baraka’s critical provocation, further reinforced by the poetic rendering of Gil Scot Herron, continues to haunt me: “WHO WILL SURVIVE IN AMERICA?” I am productively troubled by this question, and I am eager to explore a layered response via the image and symbolism of the U.S. American battle flag.
