Legacies of Biafra

Legacies of Biafra was held over two floors of the Brunei gallery, which is housed by the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. The stimulus was the need to mark and commemorate the fifty years that have elapsed since the establishment of the Republic of Biafra and the subsequent turbulence of the Nigerian civil war. The genesis of the exhibition was in a conference, Legacies of Biafra, hosted by the Igbo Conference (Igbo Studies Initiative) at the School of Oriental and African Studies in April 2017. This exhibition was developed in collaboration with the Nigeria Art Society UK (NASUK) and was a visual illustration of the complex legacies of Biafra, the sense of mourning and loss and the belief in hope of renewal. As the curator, Louisa Egbunike, notes in her introduction to the catalogue, the conversation about Biafra and its legacies is not an...