Bright Ugochukwu Eke | Dark Voyage

Like his  mentor El Anatsui, Eke recycles—or up-cycles—discarded  materials as part of his method. Eke’s work often concerns water, and in “Dark Voyage” he  assembles recycled shoes to evoke the  enslaved African souls that crossed the Atlantic to the Americas and had to  assume new identities—assimilating into to “western” cultures. At the same time, this work speaks to issues of migration that are current in many parts of our world today, with immigrants traveling by foot and by water. The rubber employed in this installation is particularly noxious and not easy to recycle.