Zina, who is currently holding her first solo gallery show in London, lamented how fishing and farming activities have been disrupted as a result of oil extraction in the Niger Delta.
Zina Saro-Wiwa, daughter of the late environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa has expressed disappointed over the negative effects of oil exploration in the Niger Delta.
Zina, who is currently holding her first solo gallery show in London, in an interview with ArtForum, lamented how fishing and farming activities have been disrupted as a result of oil extraction.
Her words: “We don’t control the oil that is extracted and exported from under our feet, and our fishing and farming have been severely disrupted as a result of extractive processes. It’s a shame that oil was found somewhere as verdant and fecund as the Niger Delta. It would’ve been better if this had happened somewhere unpopulated, such as in a desert. But this is where the oil is, and it is in this contested landscape that I have made an artistic intervention.
"I’d been a radio and TV journalist in my past. But when approaching the Niger Delta—the place of my birth—the experience was so overwhelming for me that a journalistic lens wasn’t ever going to be fulfilling. That’s a large part of the reason why art attracted me. It gave me the latitude and the space to allow the Niger Delta to speak to me and speak through me. I wasn’t willing to go there with anything fixed in mind—I wanted the place to tell me what it wanted to say."
Her show, which is titled 'The Turquoise Meat Inside' is a photographic and video work, set in the Niger Delta and is currently on display at the Tiwani Contemporary, London until October 27, 2018.