Resume

  Curriculum Vitae

Education:                         2017

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Art Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Dissertation Research:

Utilisation of urban solid wastes for artistic purposes, as a tool in environment management in Nsukka urban area. November 2017

Continuing from my experiences at the MFA level, my Ph.D work was informed by the continued aesthetic and environmental damage being witnessed due to improper urban waste disposal in most African cities. I set out to use Nsukka as a study example to start an intervention. Using the cyclical action research method, I decided to intervene through educating and raising awareness.  From experience gained, I developed an environmental learning bulletin that is usable for teaching children waste and environmental education, where the 3rs of waste was innovated to add a 4th R which is to RE-THINK waste.

My doctoral Thesis was supervised by Prof. Okpan K. Oyeoku

Master of Fine Arts (MFA), University of Nigeria Nsukka 2006

MFA Studio Project: Urban solid wastes as resource for sculpture. 

As an undergraduate student, I had noticed the aesthetic and environmental difference between my home in the rural area and my home in my sub-urban university environment, this raised my curiosity and informed my decision to work with urban solid wastes with the aim of creating and engendering a frugal mentality and a circular economic sense where instead of throwing things away we save them for others use. It also addressed the arrival of the Ama breweries in the state as at that time with its attendant environmental issues. This project gave rise to the Sculpted Basket Project and artist’s development initiative which began in 2007 with a project that engaged locally made baskets as alternative to plastic as waste collector and as a metaphor for development.

My MFA Studio and thesis was supervised by Prof. Emeritus El Anatsui.

Bachelor of Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka - 1998

My undergraduate thesis was on an exclusively women’s experience, the Echi-Ukwu title taking which I have continued to study its devolution in the contemporary time. After four years of study which spanned learning in the different visual areas of fine and applied arts, I also took courses in basic philosophy, drama, basic science and languages (German and French).

Key Skills: ICT, Research, Writing, Sculpture, Graphics, Art Exploration

Areas of expertise: Culture and Creative Arts, Administration, Art Education, Computer Graphics, Exploration and Studio Practice

Professional Experience

Climate Parent Fellowship: 2021 Cohort

This is a Global Parents climate fellowship awarded in July 2021 till June 2022. I am mobilising more Nigerian parents to come together for climate action from the education to the social sectors, while connecting with eleven other women from the ten other countries to support, learn and act together from a local to a global perspective in the face of the imminent and expected climate crisis. 

 

Lecturer in Sculpture, Dept. of Fine & Applied Arts, UNN, 2017 – date

I teach final and penultimate classes Sculpture theory, Space Organisation and Sculpture Processes, through these courses students are expose to the philosophy, critical theories derivable from known sculptors and those in diaspora. I also engage them in utilisation of space for design and installation, traditional and contemporary sculptural processes.

Art Teacher: I also undertake Cultural and Creative Art Teaching where I help children aged 11 – 13  engage the broad curriculum dealing with basic knowledge of Culture, Creative arts, team building and self control. Overcoming the challenge of lack of teaching aids by improvising as well as evolving and innovating pedagogical approaches that help me contain the learning differences of young people is one of the major learning points of this endeavour.

Graphics and Visualisation Artist ICT/Innovation Centre, UNN. 2008– 2017

I provided Graphic visualisation and creative support for the ICT/Innovation Centre and for the University as a whole. Working for the newly created university website and managing contents. I also created the corporate identity manual from where we designed and generated the present headed paper for the university.

Publications/Scholarly works

Book Chapters Chapter in Book: Living with Herdsmen: A Visual Artist’s Perspective (Chapter 14) in Nigeria’s Resource Wars, (2020) Vernon Press, USA. Edited by Egodi Uchendu

Sculpted Basket Project (My Artists Project) featured in What We Want Is Free, Second Edition: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art  - Sunny Press, edited by Ted Purves, Shane Aslan Selzer 2014

Magazine Article: Sculpted Basket Project: Arts for Development in Herimag Magazine (A magazine chronicling the Nigerian cultural scene. Vol. 1, No. 3, 2010.

Newsletter Article: Local environment, local crafts in Footsteps No. 75 a publication of the Tearfund International Organization, UK:

Poetry Memories of a Nice Father: A tribute to My late Father: Nnajinwume Arua Nathaniel Ichi Ngwu: Nsukka, January, 2008.

Journal Article: “Uses of ICT in Schools Administration” in The Nigerian Principal (A publication of All Nigerian Conference of Principals, (ANCOPPS), April 2005, Pastor O.O. Akinola – Editor

Journal Poetry: Okike: An African Journal of New Writing, Prof. O.O. Enekwe - Editor

No. 37, Pages 38 and 39, June 1997

Poems – Not a Desert Yet and Tomorrow

Art Exhibitions

Solo Art Exhibitions 

Sculpted Basket Project Exhibition 2008

Multipurpose Podium, Bishop Shanahan Hospital,  Nsukka, Enugu State.

Homage to Ukehe 1998

Nnajinwume Arua Court, Ugwuode Ukehe, Enugu State.

 “Untitled Yet” A one-man mixed media art exhibition held at the ANA Gallery, 1997

University of Nigeria, Nsukka: 

Group Art Exhibitions

2021: Invincible Hands: An exhibition of works by Nigerian women in Art at the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Pan Atlantic University, Lagos, Nigeria. August 2021 -   January 2022.

Best Out of Waste Contest (First edition- Virtual) organized by the Fountainhead Blue Warriors Club in partnership with the POP Movement, Project surat, and Nature Club surat – June 28, 2021

2020: Artists for the Earth virtual exhibition Ongoing virtual exhibition by Earth Day Movement. https://www.earthday.org/artist-gallery/

Art Voice Power. Public Art Exhibition dedicated to 16 Days of activism against gender-based violence campaign was launched on 25th November in Abuja and Enugu. Female Artists Association of Nigeria in partnership with OSIWA and Environmental Art Collective Foundation. November 25 – December 10.

2019: Igwebuike: toast to El Anatsui at 75 held at the National Gallery of Arts, Enugu 4th – 16th February 

2018: Orchids for Ola Oloidi: Art Exhibition in honour of AHAN’s Founding President in Conjunction with the AHAN Biennial Conference 2018

2017: Nkoli Ka: Nsukka School After 50 years, April to June 2017

2014: Sculpted Basket Project:  Featured in What we Want is Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art, (2nd Ed) Edited by Ted Purves and Shane Aslan Selzer, State University of New York Press. 

CONFERENCES

Title, Date and place Paper Read

2021

Virtual Conferences: 

Global Just Recovery Gathering, 

Parents are Mobilising: Stories from India, Nigeria and the UK (Our Kids’ Climate and Parents for Future Global)   https://justrecoverygathering.org/session-archive/

Planetary Health Annual Meeting

Building bridges between science and society: how can parents and family activism contribute to the advancement of the climate agenda? https://infservicebr.swoogo.com/2021_planetary_health/agdtr?uid=613a326e2e938

2020

November 23 – 26, 2020

African Humanities Research and Development Circle (AHRDC) & Professor B I C Ijomah Centre for Policy Studies and Research (CPSR), University of Nigeria, Nsukka

“Nigeria and Technological Advancement: 60 Years after Independence”

Paper Presented: ARTIFACTS, TECHNOLOGY AND A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: A Sneak into Isidore Okpewho's Tides. 

November 05, 2020

AFRICA, WORLD LITERATURE AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE (AWLEL) 

Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Nigeria, 2020 Virtual Conference 

Centre-Margin Dialectics: Emergent Issues in Language and Literature 

Paper Presented: The ‘undercover brothers’: Navigating the Terrain of Homophobia in Jude Dibia’s Nigeria Onogwu, Elizabeth O., & Nnabueze, Amuche

27TH  AND 28TH October, 2020

Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Nigeria Nsukka 2020 International Virtual Conference on the Theme: Critical Issues and Challenges to Sustainable Development in Africa, in Partnership with Unesco and the Cleen Foundation Abuja,  

Paper Presented: Can the Creative Arts Curriculum Aid Understanding and Mitigate against Climate Change Effects

7th -9th December 2020

Nigerian Ecolinguistics Association  Virtual International Conference  on Ecolinguistics

Paper Presented: The Obiechi Story: Environmental Sustainability, Local Laws and Rights of Nature (RoN)

2019

May 6 – 10, 2019

Humbuldt Kolleg 

Nigeria Resource Wars 

Paper Presented: Responding to Herdsmen Throb: A Glimpse from Two Scenarios

July 2 – 6, 2019

Faculty of Vocational and Technical Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka’s 1st International Conference on Education Policy and Development of African TVET Systems for Sustainable Industries.

November 25 – 28, 2019

BIC Ijomah Centre for Policy and Research, University of Nigeria, Nsukka International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Witchcraft: Meanings, Factors and Practices.

Paper Presented: - Patterns of Witchcraftry (“Nwinching”) in University of Nigeria, Nsukka

December 5 – 11 2019

Centre for Lion Gadgets and Technologies (LGT-UNN) 1st International Conference on Nigeria’s Technolgoical Backwardness: A Call for Coordinated Multi-Disciplinary Action

2018

April 8 – 13  2018

2018 International Conference and the Chinua Achebe Memorial Lecturer of the 

Faculty of Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Paper Presented: Art and Symbolic Embodiments of Echi-Ukwu Women’s Title Taking Tradition in Ukehe, Southeastern Nigeria.

July 18-21, 2018

Art Historical Association of Nigeria (AHAN) Biennal Conference

Paper Presented: Thematic Trends and Research Interests of Doctoral Students of Art History in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka 1980-2017

December 9 – 13, 2018.

Africanity Scholars Network (AFRISCON) 1st International Conference

Theme: Knowledge Loss, Bondage and Regrets in Post-Contact Societies

Paper Presented: Nkata: An Indigenous Craft Approach to Waste and Environmental Management Using Locally made Baskets

 

Awards/Grants/Fellowship

Global Climate Parents Fellowship 2021

Grants winner: TerraKulture arts and crafts grants 2008

Award winner:  

Footsteps (a Tearfund publication) Ideas Communication Competition – 2008 www.tearfund.org

3-times winner: (January, February, March) 2004

Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Enugu State branch monthly poetry reading competition.

Membership in Organisations:

Member Global Parents for Future Movement 2020 – date

Member University Women’s Association (UWA)

University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Female Artists Association of Nigeria 2010 – Date

Association of Fine and Applied Arts Students (AFAAS), 1997-1998

University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Position held: Vice President.