Emeka Okereke is a Nigerian visual artist and writer who lives and works between Lagos and Berlin, moving from one country to the other frequently. A past member of the renowned Nigerian photography collective Depth of Field (DOF), he holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Ecole Nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and has exhibited in biennales and art festivals in cities across the world, notably Lagos, Bamako, Cape Town, London, Berlin, Bayreuth, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Brussels, Johannesburg, New York, Washington, Barcelona, Seville, Madrid, and Paris. In 2015, his work was exhibited at the 56th Venice Biennale, in the context of an installation titled A Trans-African Worldspace.
Okereke is the founder and artistic director of Invisible Borders Trans-African Project, an artist-led initiative that addresses gaps and misconceptions posed by frontiers dividing the 54 countries of the African continent. The project’s flagship undertaking is the Invisible Borders Trans-African Road Trip, wherein a dozen artists, including photographers, writers, filmmakers, and performance artists collectively travel across Africa to explore and participate in various photographic events, festivals, and exhibitions while engaging in a daily basis with, and producing work about/in collaboration with, the people and the places they encounter.
Okereke’s work oscillates between diverse mediums. He employs photography, video, poetry, and performative interventions in the exploration of one over-arching theme: that of borders.
Another aspect of his artistic practice lies in the intersection between artmaking and pedagogy, specifically, lecturing and project organizing – coordinating artistic interventions that promote exchanges cutting across national and international platforms. In 2008, he organized the first ever photographic exchange project between schools in France and Nigeria – the Yaba College of Arts and Technology Lagos and Ecole Nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. This was followed by Crossing Compasses: Lagos-Berlin Photo Exchange and Converging Visions: Nigeria-Netherlands Photo Exchange (2012).
Okereke has served as a guest/visiting lecturer in several art platforms and learning institutions – most recently Hartford University’s MFA program in photography and Summer Academy of Fine Arts, Salzburg Austria (July 2018).
In 2018, Emeka Okereke was conferred France’s prestigious insignia of Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters) by the Ministry of Culture of France as recognition of his contribution to the discourse on art in Africa, France, and the world at large.
