NYUAD Theater Program Fall Mainstage Production
Art, Activism and Food; performance practice and food politics | Ikwe na odu
Symposium and Performance
Thursday-Sunday, Nov 9-12, 2023
Past Event
A series of performative provocations that tackle the use of food as a weapon of warfare
How is food used as a weapon of warfare? Through a series of performative provocations, the Theater Program’s fall production speaks to food politics in relation to the impact on the environment, economics, and identity.
Ikwe na odu [Igbo for “mortar and pestle”] is a six-hour performance installation conceived and directed by Chinasa Vivian Ezugha that invites audiences to consider the labor of food production. In addition to the performance installation, there will be a symposium, Art, Activism and Food; performance practice and food politics that invites artists from the global south and U.K. and the NYUAD and UAE community to respond to themes around activism, performance, and food.
NYU Abu Dhabi currently chairs the Universities Climate Network, which comprises UAE-based universities and higher education institutions to facilitate dialogues, workshops, public events, policy briefs, and youth participation in the lead up to and beyond COP28. Presented in support of COP28.
Presented as part of the lead-up to COP28
Biography
Chinasa Vivian Ezugha
Assistant Arts Professor of Live Art/Art as Social Practice Chinasa Vivian Ezugha is a PhD candidate at the University of Exeter. Her interdisciplinary practice spans Live Art, film, and drawing, questioning her identity as a Black woman living in England. Her works have been presented at SPILL Festival (2018), Performance Space (2018), In Between Time Festival (2017), ECOS (Bilbao, 2017), Songs for President (New York, 2015), and Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival (Chicago, 2015). She was Leverhulme Arts Scholar, Wysing Arts Centre (2014), winner of the New Art Exchange Open Main Prize (2019), Awesome Foundation disability grant winner (2019), and recipient of the Santander Universities Post Covid-19 Enterprise Award (2020), Goldsmiths. Founder of Live Art in Wymondham, Norfolk and she is the 2021 Research Associate at the Centre for Contemporary Art Derry, Londonderry. Ezugha holds a BA in Fine Art from Aberystwyth University and an MA in Performance Making from Goldsmiths, University of London.