Umar Rashid

Umar Rashid's residency occurred between February and March 2023 in GAS's space in Lekki, while the exhibition "The Undiscovered Genius of the Niger Delta"  was on show at Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos; this was the artist's first show in the Lagos gallery.

 

The title for the show describes the artist’s estranged position and approach to understanding and building familiarity to the kinship groups, country and continent he descends from as a process of orientation in a country - Nigeria - he’d never physically been to prior to his residency at G.A.S. Foundation.

 

In this new series of twelve works on canvas, Rashid questions what forms of agency, thought and self-determination could individuals have experienced during the 16-19th centuries that could shape regional or world events for better or for worse? To what extent are black and brown subjects complicit in the formation of the world-shaping events that colonialism enacts?

 

Rashid uses the lyrics and structure of the song 1999, by the late American musician Prince, to pace the trajectories of four protagonists, who in 1799 leave the land that would eventually become known as Nigeria 98 years later (in 1897). He imagines individuals from the Fulani/Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and Calabar/Efik cultural groups embarking on journeys that support the mercenary activity of Company Crocodile, a black military regiment of the Frenglish Empire, Rashid’s own fictional universe whose exploits around the globe he chronicles in paintings, sculpture, moving-image and literature.