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Memory, Music, & The Moving Image: The Work of Olukemi Lijadu
August 6, 2024 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm CDT
The Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago will host a film screening of “Come and Speak to Me of What You Felt” (2021), “Guardian Angel” (2022), and “Trading Memories Part I” (2022) by 2023 Villa Albertine Resident Olukemi Lijadu. This event, which is open to the public, will be held on Tuesday, August 6th, 2024 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM CDT at the Great Cities Institute (412 South Peoria Street, Suite 400, Chicago, Illinois 60607-7067). Click here for the downloadable PDF of the flyer. To RSVP, click here.
About the Films:
The work, Come and Speak to Me of What You Felt (2021), the artist weaves together fragmented threads of Black music. Come and Speak to Me of What You Felt is an exploration of the search for one’s history and how music can communicate feelings beyond words across time and distance.
A multi-screen projection and multi-sensory live performance, Guardian Angel (2022) is a commissioned film that explores the artist’s relationship with religion, informed by her grandmother, study of African philosophy and Catholic upbringing.
Trading Memories Part I (2022)is a moving image work and soundscape that incorporates film, sound, and photography, based on a collection of photos of a middle-class family in Lagos. These photographs were discovered in 2021 at an antique market in London’s Notting Hill, where they were sold among piles of otherwise discarded goods for just two pounds. The striking nature of these images, functioning as a time capsule far from their original context, immediately conveyed to the artist that they depicted a Nigerian Yoruba family from the early 2000s. The core inquiry of this series centers around the concept of ‘just knowing.’ In Trading Memories Part I, the artist explores the photographs not merely as artifacts of memory and family history, but as sites of encounter between themselves and the images. The work dissects moments of recognition, focusing on the artist’s personal reflections and connections with the photographs. A recurring theme in Trading Memories Part I is the close-up, which emphasizes these moments of recognition. Elements such as the harmattan dust on polished black buckled shoes, the texture of a birthday girl’s tulle dress, crates of soft drinks in glass bottles, white socks, and a Barbie birthday cake are motifs that resonate with the artist’s own childhood experiences in Lagos.
About the Filmmaker:
Olukemi Lijadu is a visual artist, DJ and music producer who performs under the moniker KEM KEM. Lijadu engages with sound as a transcendent conduit of memory and reconnection for the fractured African diaspora and work as a form of accessing Atlantic memory. A trained philosopher; she holds a masters degree in Philosophy from Stanford University. She lives and works between London and Lagos. Over the years, her work and performances have been held at ICA London, Frieze Cork Street and Mariane Ibrahim Chicago. Her original compositions have been played on the runways of Copenhagen fashion week and are woven into her films. As a DJ, KEM KEM has performed in and for the Luma Museum, Tiwani Gallery and Corvi-Mora. She was selected as a 2023 Villa Albertine resident where she is currently researching and developing a body of work around the West African influence on Chicago House music.
Reinventing artists’ residencies, Villa Albertine is creating a network for arts and ideas spanning France and the United States. It offers tailor-made residencies for global creators, thinkers and cultural professionals. For more information on Villa Albertine, please click here.
