Obodo (Country, City, Town, Ancestral Village) 2019

Editor: We’re looking at “Obodo (Country, City, Town, Ancestral Village)” by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, created in 2019. It seems to be an urban mural, sprawling across the side of a building. I’m struck by its scale and how it seems to weave personal narratives into the cityscape. What layers do you see in this piece? Curator: Oh, layers are everything here, aren’t they? It's like the city exhaling memories. Crosby's work is so profoundly personal, like rifling through a box of family photos in a bustling marketplace. See how she juxtaposes intimate domestic scenes with the vastness of the urban landscape? It’s not just about physical space but emotional geography. How does that juxaposition speak to you? Editor: I think it creates this tension, this constant push and pull between belonging and displacement. It feels like the artist is trying to reconcile her identity within multiple spaces at once. Curator: Exactly. It's this visual conversation about identity and belonging, painted right onto the urban canvas. The architectural elements, those hard edges and repeating patterns, clash with the soft, almost dreamlike quality of the figures. Have you ever felt that friction, that sense of self shifting depending on the context? It’s pretty wild to me! Editor: Definitely. It makes me consider how cities themselves are collages of individual experiences and histories. Curator: Right? Each building a memory palace, each street a potential story. Crosby invites us to recognize that within the seemingly impersonal shell of urban life. It really gets my neurons firing, hoping my inner compass could align with hers to get close to an accurate understanding of displacement as a citizen of a "world gone wrong" , in Deleuze's words. Editor: That’s a powerful interpretation. I’m seeing the city, and my own place within it, in a new way now. Curator: Wonderful, isn’t it? Art, after all, is a two way street. You get back tenfold the work you're willing to invest in the process of interpreting it.