“my mother was my first home / bury me on my father's land”, custom stamps, 26.67 cm x 20.32 cm, 2022
Key words: sovereignty; national belonging; family lineage; migration; civil war; borders
“My mother was my first home / bury me on my father's land” is a set of custom stamps that speak to the artist's three nationalities: Nigerian, Biafran and Canadian.
The work takes as its foundation stamps initially printed by the Nigerian state but later repurposed by the recently created Republic of Biafra (a secessionist state created by the Igbo, whose birth and demise marked the beginning and end of the 1967-1970 Nigerian civil war) as a way of signaling its sovereignty on the international stage.
Brought together in one stamp (a stamp issued and legitimated by the Canadian state), alongside photographs of her parents, the work speaks to contesting claims to nationhood, sovereignty and belonging.”
Photo credit: Alison Postma