Vol. 34 No. 1 (2025): Nordic Journal of African Studies
The Aesthetics of Home-Making in Diasporic Cultural Production

Diasporic Witnessing: Art Aesthetics in Response to Crisis

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Chichi Ayalogu
Carleton University
Bio

Published 2025-03-31

Keywords

  • Nigerian diaspora,
  • postcolonial crises,
  • visual art,
  • witnessing,
  • spectatorship,
  • documentary
    • ...More
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Copyright (c) 2025 Chichi Ayalogu

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Diasporic Witnessing: Art Aesthetics in Response to Crisis. (2025). Nordic Journal of African Studies, 34(1), 18–37. https://doi.org/10.53228/jr2j2c36

Abstract

This article explores diasporic cultural texts that document suffering in homeland contexts. Analysing contemporary visual art produced by Nigerian artists based in Canada and Belgium, and engaging with canonical scholarship on witnessing, spectatorship, and diaspora studies, this article offers a new taxonomy of diasporic witnessing, which, I argue, reflects how a diasporic migratory intelligentsia frames and represents crises in the homeland. By examining the work of three disparate artists, this article argues that diasporic witnessing offers a unique framework for understanding how diasporic subjects with material and cultural currency view, engage with, and respond to political and structural crisis in the homeland. 

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