JOSEPH OBANÍ-ÌBÍ (OBANUBI)

Personal Statement

Obanubi’s practice is constructed out of three main ideologies: survival, interest, and exploration. My work explores the relationship between identity, fantasy, play, technologies, within the context of globalization. He describes his  art making practice as a visual bricolage — a (re)construct of fragments found in everyday experiences taken from their original context into a new one. His creative ideology stems from concepts of aggregation, erasure and re-construction, black speculation and futurism,  as well as experimentation. He is as attracted to in-between states as opposed to directness. 

Research methods include physical and digital image making techniques, photographing, drawing, collaging, reading, traveling, observation, interview, experiments, documentary, and movies. 

Some primary texts he reviews are music, films, social-media, oratory/storytelling, and Fiction. Obanubi’s ongoing Research questions and statements revolve around strategies of constructing alternative ways of seeing and blurring the divide between what is present and what could be.  He is concerned with materiality and what it communicates in his practice. He is constantly exploring and navigating  the roles of time and ephemeralness as it concerns (new) technologies in his work