LINDA LAMIGNAN

Petroleum Landscapes: If we let it burn, 2023 Petroleum wax with pigment on wooden panels 3 pieces, 120x240 each

Installation view from the exhibition spelling slipping ellipsis at Lunds Konsthall.

Photos: Olof Nimar

“Obanamen” means “queen/king of the sea” in Edo, the native tongue of the performer in the video. Built up by different chapters, each chapter represents moods from different depths and levels of the sea. A story about flow and wandering, about learning new ways of seeing from sea creatures. Movement in water becomes the healing element to decolonialized self-love and self acceptance.

A collaborative project between Linda Lamignan, Itohan Emonvomwan and Serena Coelho. The installation is a collection of the research and material gathered. Centered around the Ananas, the installation was transformed as new elements, both from outside and within the Azores, were added to the space. Through the use of video, sound and objects, the work moves away from the western centric labels usually used to describe botanical items like fruit and plants, and instead focuses on how Linda, Itohan and Serena each relate to the ananas on a personal level and the meeting with the fruit in everyday life. The ananas, the Azores and the Atlantic sea also connect the continents and the cultures of the artists in the project.

Water no get enemy was part of the 11th edition of the Azores arts and music festival, Walk&Talk

The work was made with support from The Danish Art Foundation

The 11th edition has curatorial coordination by Irene Campolmi, Jesse James, Joana Cardoso, Luís Brum and Sofia Carolina Botelho, and Walk&Talk - Arts Festival is funded by the Ministry of Culture of Portugal - DGArtes, Government of the Azores, Municipality of Ponta de Delgada , Turisme of Portugal, Creative Europe, FLAD and Acción Cultural Espanõla.

Photos: Mariana Lopes

Water no get enemy, 2022

Performance

Words From Our Body, Like Water From the Sea, 2022

Performative concert at Roskilde Festival together with Noella Birisawa, Raven Storm og Deodato Siquir on the Ambereum stage.

Outfits and styling by Aziza Mastaki

Makup by Asli Mohamed

Photos: Rine Rodin

Passing in crossing over going through, 2022

Painted mural, 800cm x 400cm

Public art piece made together with Rose Lykke Herrera for Holbæk Art, curated by Mette Kjærgaard Prest.

“In Passing in crossing over going through Linda Lamignan has taken inspiration from traditional house and building decorations used in Gurunsi earth houses in Burkina Faso, Hausa Tubali houses in Nigeria and Ndbele houses in Southern Africa, in which symbols are used as a way of telling stories, to bring luck or keep away bad spirits or energies.

Incorporating ‘animism’ – accoriding to which, all things and all matter are alive – in their practice Lamignan uses symbols as materials, and therfore belive that the symbols has a soul, tell a story and holds memory. The symbols in this mural speak of their own historical significance and the transformations they have each gone through.

In Passing in crossing over going through Linda has used symbols of commodidites that relate to their own background and to past and present export industires of Nigeria; goundnuts, cocoa and palm oil, while other symbols are connected to the colonial history of Holbæk; suger, rum and tobacco were produced by enslaved people from Africa and imported to Denmark, while herring from Vestsjælland was exported and sold as food for enslaved people in Denmark’s West Indian colonial territories. Other symbols, such as the Calabash, the sun and the crying eyes function as symbols, which contain past memories and alternative futures, protection, cleansing and healing.

As such Passing in crossing over going through brings stories of the past into the present as a reminder of how our ways of yesterday affects our ways of today.”

— Mette Kjærgaard Prest

Photos: 1 + 2 Carsten Salbo / 3 + 4 Kim Nilsen

Transform.Time.Debth.Heat.Pressure pt.1: Dickamore Petro & Chem, 2022

Video and Performance

Transform.Time.Debth.Heat.Pressure is a three part video performance series created by Linda Lamignan and David Lamignan Larsen for the public art program of the group exhibition Experiences of Oil at Stavanger Kunstmuseum, curated by Anne Szefer Karlsen and Helga Nyman.

Documentation from the video screening and performance that took place at Stavanger Oljemuseum January 2022.

Produced by Marie Skretting.

Documentation photos: Shadé Barka Martins

The work was created with support from Norsk Kulturåd

T.T.D.H.P pt. 3 : The level of silence

2022

Video performance created by Linda Lamignan and David Lamignan Larsen

Produced by Marie Skretting

Documentation: Shadé Barka Martins

The work was created with support from Norsk Kulturåd

Transform.Time.Debth.Heat.Pressure pt.1: Black Earth, Orange Sky, 2022

Video and Performance

Transform.Time.Debth.Heat.Pressure is a three part video performance series created by Linda Lamignan and David Lamignan Larsen for the public art program of the group exhibition Experiences of Oil at Stavanger Kunstmuseum, curated by Anne Szefer Karlsen and Helga Nyman.

THOSE WHO DO NOT TRAVEL NEVER ARRIVE: I DID NOT COME ALONE, 2021

Stills and installation view of HD-Video, 11:04 min

Spoken word by Noella Birisawa, 3D landscapes by Kristoffer Amundsen, music produced in collaboration with Xenia Xanamek and Djavan Jami

The work was part of the The UKS anniversary exhibition 100 YEARS OF CONVIVIALITY at Kunstnernes Hus

Created with support from Norsk Kulturåd

Installation photo by Jan Khür

Carry Your Home, 2021

Stills from HD-Video, 54:00 min

Installation photos by: Shadé Barka Martins

those who do not travel never arrive: The thirst in our hearts we came to pour, 2021

Aluminium, golden plated aluminium chains, petroleum wax with pigment

300xø500cm

The work was part of the solo exhibition Carry Your Home at Rogaland Kunstsenter.

Photos by Oddbjørn Erland Aarstad

those who do not travel never arrive: Adebayo, Elimina, Esi, Ramatu, 2021

Aluminium, digital print on silk and wool fabric

4 pieces, each 300x160x7cm

These works where part of the solo exhibition Carry Your Home at Rogaland Kunstsenter

Photos by: Shadé Barka Martins and Oddbjørn Erland Aarstad

those who do not travel never arrive: Together we arrived to the shore, 2021

Aluminium, aluminium, petroleum wax with pigment

Series of 10 pieces 30x30cm, height of each piece range from 68cm - 170cm

The work was part of the solo exhibition Carry Your Home at Rogaland Kunstsenter

Photos by: Shadé Barka Martins and Oddbjørn Erland Aarstad

Like Stones From The Earth, pt. II, 2022

Performance with music and amulets.

Headpiece and styling by Itohan Emonvomwan

Latex dress made in collaboration with Aida Ra Mana

This performance was shown at Centrum in Berlin and curated by Jorgina Stamogianni

Photos by Willan Octave-Emile

Made with support from Statens Kunstfond

those who do not travel, never arrive: Held by the Shape, 2021

This performance was part of the exhibition Soil.Sickness.Society at Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm, curated by Marie Kjær Themsen

Painted outfit by Sarah Dominique Ihirwe

Rotating Calabash made by Kristoffer Amundsen

Last song in the performance produced by Wanlov The Kubolor

Documentatio by Mads Hoppe and Christian Brems

those who do not travel never arrive: Held by The Shape, 2021

Petroleum wax with pigment, golden chains, painted leather clothes

Collaboration with the artist Sarah Dominique Ihirwe.

The work was part of the group exhibition Soil.Sickness.Society, curated by Maria Kjær Themsen at at Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm.

Made with support from Statens Kunstfond

Photos: Jacob Friis-Holm Nielsen

Like Stones From The Earth pt. I, 2020

Performance with music and amulets.

Outfit designed in collaboration with Aida Ra Mana.

The work was part of the art program Thinking Feelings - A Space of Intimacy curated by Irene Campolmi.

Gather and Grind, 2020

Stills from HD-video, 06:00 min

Performance by Aida Rønvik

Outfit created in collaboration with Aida Rønvik

3D-Visuals created in collaboration with Kristoffer Amundsen

A New Value System With Images and Symbols That Connect us to Each Other and to The Planet: Humans Dwell Among Water Spirits, 2019

Stills from HD-video, 07.20 min

A video work, featuring members of my family. The thematic core is built upon the presence of my Nigerian Ijaw and Norwegian ancestors, the experience of floating in the middle ground between two cultures and the influence of water in both cultures. My Nigerian mother moves through Norwegian water landscapes. She grew up swimming in the rivers of the Delta State, among crocodiles and water spirits. My brother performs Black Fu in the ocean. He uses these motions to introduce new perspectives on ways to connect his brown body to the water. An act of resistance. In several situations, he has had to use the knowledge of these movements to defend himself from physical attacks from neo nazis. In addition, my own body sails above the sea and emerges in water. 

Water spirits and Mami Wata play a big role in Ijaw traditional religion and beliefs of the Ijaw. In Nigeria, devotees of Mami Wata typically wear red and white clothing, as these colors represent Mami's dual nature.

From concepts like The Great Chain of Being, a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, to Descartes dichotomy between mechanical, unthinking matter and pure, thinking mind, I wishes to step outside the current of Western philosophical tradition and instead enter into a stream of thoughts and traditions that unifies water, plants, animals, bodies, mind and soul. Water represents the unified presence of my disparate ancestors, connecting us across time and space, from the near to the elsewhere.

A New Value System With Images and Symbols That Connect Us to Each Other and to The Planet: Between our Body and the Breathing Earth pt. I, 2019

Stills from HD-Video, 10.30 min

Chenjerai told me

those who do not travel never arrive

we arrived

to the state of an alien consciousness

A soul caught between

two, three, four worlds

trapped between

spirit and technology

entering a fluid state

transformation changing shapes l

earning the language

of gesture and shadow

listening with our bodies

as the light glows and the wind blows

in silent communication with a wisdom older than out thinking mind

A New Value System With Images and Symbols That Connect Us to Each Other and to The Planet: Between our Body and the Breathing Earth pt. II, 2019

Stills from HD-video, 06:30 min

Performers: Wanlov The Kubolor, David Lamignan Larsen and Laura Ann Morisson

A New Value System With Images and Symbols That Connect Us to Each Other and to The Planet is a project consisting of four video and sculptural works. The works exists in a speculative space where the borders between culture, gender, human, nature and technology are blurred. The project draws inspiration from two literary sources, the first from Gloria Anzaldua's book: Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza - a book that challenges the ideas around diaspora, race and identity; addressing the invisible boundaries that exist between different cultures, genders and sexualities. Anzaldua uses Borderlands as a term to identify a growing population that cannot distinguish between these invisible borders, which instead have learned to become part of both worlds. The title of the project is taken from this book. The second source of inspiration is from David Abram's book Becoming Animal. The book explores the relationship between humans and the other species with whom we share the planet. Abram opens up new ways of understanding our own place in the world.

Photos: David Stjerholm

A New Value System With Images and Symbols That Connect Us to Each Other and to The Planet - Towards a New Consciousness, 2018

HD-video, 07:10 min

Lyrics from this work is written with inspiration from the words of Gloria Anzaldua's and David Abram.

In this video, my brother is seen performing Kung Fu, or Black Fu, in the patterns of four different animals: crane, snake, monkey and tiger. These motions are used as a way to connect to the animal within the human and introduces new perspectives on ways of using the body. It is also an act of resistance, in several situations, he has had to use the knowledge of these movements to defend himself from physical attacks from neo nazis.

Installation view of the group exhibition Arbeidsverk#1, curated by Studio17 in Stavanger. The works where installed in an empty store space, all the materials used are related to the current export industries in Nigeria and Norway.

2017

Palm oil, cotton, wood

Installation view from Hildelund Konstfestival, 2017.

Photo: Hans Edward Hammonds

Installation View from The Only Way is Up at Kunsthall Stavanger

Throw Your Traces - Groundnuts

Kano Pyramide 1, 2016

100 cm x 100 cm

Groundnuts, wood, glue

Kano Pyramide 2, 2016

50 cm x 50 cm

Groundnuts, wood, glue

Kano Pyramide 3, 2016

75 cm x 75 cm

Groundnuts, wood, glue

Throw Your Traces - Cacao, 2016

Size varies

Cacao beans, fishing line, screw hooks, wood

Throw Your Traces - Palm oil, 2016

100cm x 100cm

Palm oil, Plexiglass, Wood

Photo: Maya Økland