Join the RSA Islington Network at this screening and Q&A with Nigerian artist-filmmaker Wilfred Ukpong on his youth project and collaborative film Future-World-EXV (2019).
Wilfred Ukpong originally planned to follow his father, a manager for Nigerian Exxon Mobil, into an oil and gas engineering career. Instead, he became an artist-filmmaker, raising awareness of the climate emergency.
Working from his Blazing Century Studios in the Niger Delta (his birthplace in Southern Nigeria), and as a practice-led researcher in Oxford Brookes University, Ukpong focuses his work on the Niger Delta region’s history as a major palm oil producer for British colonisers and a major global exporter of crude oil to the west. The region has also been at the centre of environmental justice campaigns, with concerns over major spills and flares at the hands of oil and gas industry giants. Ukpong’s film FUTURE-WORLD-EXV (2019) is a compelling poetic reflection on regional environmental degradation and exploitation.
Developed collaboratively with local young people, this visually stunning experimental short emerged out of workshops that combined skills development with research and creative invention. Wilfred Ukpong is joined by three of his collaborators on the film, Naomi Friday Harry, Spero-Lyons Akpasam and Edikan Willie, for this Q&A with film historian Erica Carter. A screening link will be provided to attendees to watch in advance of the event.
This event is part of a series of RSA Islington Climate Conversations run by the RSA Islington Network in the lead-up to and following the Glasgow COP26 Climate Change Conference in November 2021. We welcome all who are interested from anywhere in the world, within and beyond our RSA Fellowship community.
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Image courtesy of Wilfred UKPONG and BLAZING CENTURY STUDIOS, Nigeria.