Wura-Natasha Ogunji

Born in St. Louis (USA), Ogunji lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria. Her performances explore the presence of women in public space, examining questions of labour, leisure, freedom, and frivolity.

The performances often use the body as both material and measure, testing the physical and social conditions of public space. Alongside this performance practice, Ogunji’s drawings and moving image works extend her interest in gesture, movement, connection, and the ways bodies relate to one another and their surroundings.

Recent exhibitions and performances include The Dash at African Art in Venice Forum; O Poder de Minhas Mãos at SESC Pompéia, São Paulo; A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern, London; rīvus, the 23rd Biennale of Sydney; and The Power of My Hands: Afrique(s) artistes femmes at the Museum of Modern Art, Paris. In 2018, Ogunji was an Artist-Curator for the 33rd São Paulo Bienal, where her large-scale performance Days of Being Free premiered. Her work has also been presented at Palais de Tokyo, the Lagos Biennial, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Stellenbosch Triennale, Seattle Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

Ogunji is a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and has received support from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Dallas Museum of Art and the Idea Fund. Her work is held in collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Baltimore Museum of Art; Smithsonian National Museum of African Art; International African American Museum, Charleston; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; North Dakota Museum of Art; The University of Texas at Austin; Marieluise Hessel Collection at the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College; and Kadist Foundation.

She holds a BA in Anthropology from Stanford University and an MFA in Photography from San Jose State University. Ogunji lives and works in Lagos, where she founded the experimental art space The Treehouse.