Mikael Owunna
Reconstructing the Primordial House
November 6th – December 19th 2021
Mikael Owunna
Reconstructing the Primordial House
November 6th – December 19th 2021
Last screening of Obi Mbu (The Primordial House): An Igbo Creation Myth
Saturday, December 18th 2:00pm - 2:30pm
Q&A with Mikael Owunna & Marques Redd: 2:30pm - 3:00pm
Exploring a panoply of diasporic African myths (Dogon, Igbo, and African-American), Reconstructing the Primordial House is the debut LA solo show of the multidisciplinary artist Mikael Owunna. In the space of Iris Project, Owunna presents a mythical reconstruction of Obi Mbu, the Primordial House of Igbo cosmology, which is a symbol of the Primordial Androgynous Blackness of space in its original pure state of monolithic harmony.
Adorning the walls are ten images from Owunna’s photographic series Infinite Essence, for which the artist leveraged his training as an engineer to build a camera flash that only transmits ultraviolet light. Owunna meticulously hand paints the nude bodies of Black models with fluorescent paints that only glow under ultraviolet light and photographs them in total darkness. For the fraction of a second that his shutter snaps, a transfiguration happens: the Black body is illuminated as the starry universe itself. Owunna places these glowing bodies into tableaux from the archive of African diasporic myth and prints these images on aluminum sheets. The metal substrate connects the work to a deep history of African smithing traditions embodied in figures like the Igbo bronze casters of Igbo-Ukwu and Demme Na, the mythical Dogon smiths that descended from the heavens. These ten metal works frame the external boundary of the revived Primordial House.
Obi Mbu (The Primordial House): An Igbo Creation Myth (co-directed by Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd) is the title of the film on display at the heart of the exhibition space. This structural location recalls the Igbo myth that is reenacted here, which focuses on a mysterious pillared chamber (Ozi-Obi-Chukwu) at the center of the Primordial House into which the Igbo deity Chukwu dances and where he performs a secret work that leads to the creation of the world. The film presents a 30-minute dance performance that explores the movement of two Black dancers, Corey Bourbonniere and Victoria Watford, illuminated under a backdrop of ultraviolet light.
Summoning the reconstruction of the Primordial House in the gallery space and invoking a return to the monolithic state, Owunna’s exhibition is a nuanced call for the revival of traditional African knowledge systems and a vibrational recalibration of Black spiritual and artistic production of the early 21st century.
Mikael Owunna is a queer Nigerian-American multimedia artist and engineer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Exploring the intersections of visual media with engineering, optics, Blackness, and African cosmologies, his work elucidates an emancipatory vision of possibility that pushes Black people beyond all boundaries, restrictions, and frontiers.
FILM SCREENINGS:
Obi Mbu (The Primordial House): An Igbo Creation Myth
A dance film directed by Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6th at 3pm
with Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd in person
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20th at 3pm
with Mikael Owunna in person and Marques Redd via Zoom
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18th at 2pm
with Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd via Zoom
