Artists: Onyeka Igwe in conversation with Jeanette Pacher
<p>British-Nigerian artist, filmmaker, and researcher Onyeka Igwe talks with curator Jeanette Pacher about her project <em>No Archive Can Restore this Chorus of (Diasporic) Shame</em> (2024/26) that lends its title also to her solo show; her interest in sound, especially protest songs, and her love for sacred harp singing, filming in the abandoned Nigerian Film Unit in Lagos, and her iterative practice. Their conversation was recorded on 11 June 2026 at the Secession.</p> <p>In the exhibition, two video works unfold in close relation to one another. The film traces the afterlives of British colonialism in Nigeria through the abandoned site of the former Nigerian Film Unit in Lagos – once a key outpost of the Colonial Film Unit’s propaganda apparatus. Today, the building stands in disrepair. The images once housed there are difficult to access – not only due to their material degradation, but also because of a broader reluctance to confront what they contain. Presented on the window front, the moving image blends with the institution’s architecture and urban surroundings, situating its sonic and visual field within the specific conditions of its display.</p>
Host: Jeanette Pacher
Guest: Onyeka Igwe
Musicians: Hui Ye
Audio Editor: Paul Macheck
Producers: Jeanette Pacher
Part of: Secession Podcast