Ebun Sodipo

Ebun Sodipo makes work for those who will come after: the Black trans people of the future. Her interdisciplinary practice narrates her construction of a Black trans-feminine self after slavery and colonialism. Through processes of fragmentation, collage, and fabulation, she devises softer, other-wise ways of imagining and speaking about the body, desire, archives, and the past. Regularly working within installation and performance, Sodipo collects visual historical fragments and weaves narratives together, part fiction, part record, to craft intricate and intimate stories not commonly found within archives or historical records­— unearthing lineages and pathways for Black trans people. Sensitive to spatial relationships and texture, environments rendered by Sodipo bring together photography, collage, sculpture, and material surfaces such as printed PVC or Silver Mylar. The use of these textural components speaks to the blurring or obscuring of Black trans history, whilst Sodipo’s fabrications bring moments of clarity and recognition. Reworking methodologies devised by thinkers such as Saidiya Hartman, Sodipo summons historical figures and visual motifs, creating resonant sites which speak to the past, present and future.