I’m always fascinated by the ever transcendent nature of poetry: how it can be music, but can also be sport; how it can be a private affair but can also be a tool that enforces community and evoke participation, making the audience part and parcel of the creation process.

My work ‘Arriving by Sound’ was a thematic response to the exhibition —We Took Refuge in the Farmished Road— curated by Chris Udoh (Curator & Founder of Anyen Iyak, an NGO concerned with artistic development and cultural preservation of Akwa Ibom and its people.) at Anyen Iyak Foundation for Art and Culture, Uyo, Nigeria, as part of its art summit, 2024.

In the performance, a poem written on sac, was torn to pieces and buried around the exhibition space. The audience were left to locate the burial sites and exhume the pieces they found. Having found the complete pieces, they collectively rebuilt the poem and read in unison.