In this episode, edna bonhomme is in conversation with Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, a transdisciplinary Nigerian-American artist and writer living in Berlin. Primarily working with painting, performance, video, installation and writing, her studio practice acts as a (meta)physical space where she can produce evidence and embark on earnest freedom pursuits. It is a way of coping, questioning and occasionally proposing something new. Recurring points of interest in her work include perversion and intuition, evolving sexuality in relation to intimacy, trauma, and body image, queer and anti-colonial methodologies, religion and spirituality, improvisation, and the recovery of child selves. Her main concern as an artist is to look at the frayed edges and ruptures of constructed realities and locate spaces where healing, liberation, and (re)generation can take place. She is often pulling from her experience of her own body and though she works through narrative-driven subject matter, she is also interrogating the wider systemic contexts and constructed realities in which these issues and questions lie.

Monilola's Website: https://monilola.com

Image: from Monilola's performance of Wayward Dust at Deutsches Technikmuseum in collaboration with Decolonize Berlin