Nigerian artist Victor Ehikhamenor turns the archive inside out. The exhibition Victor Ehikhamenor: Undoing the City, Making Home traces how art can hold the stories that official records leave out, revealing the human histories of extraction, migration and the remaking of home.
For this event, Ehikhamenor is joined by acclaimed Aboriginal artist and activist Richard Bell, alongside historians Mark LeVine (UC Irvine) and Lucia Sorbera (University of Sydney), in a conversation drawing on over a decade of research with community activists across Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Egypt and Australia. Together they will explore the power of art to document histories of land, sovereignty, resistance and self-determination that official records have often obscured, contested or denied.
The discussion asks what it means for artists and scholars to act as archivists; preserving, challenging and remaking the historical record across colonial and postcolonial contexts marked by extraction, displacement and ongoing struggles for justice. Bringing perspectives from contemporary art, activism and historical research, the panel considers how creative practice can become a powerful site of memory, truth-telling and resistance.
The panel will be followed by the official opening of the exhibition.
Victor Ehikhamenor: Undoing the City, Making Home is co-produced by the Chau Chak Wing Museum, The University of Sydney, and Blacktown Arts and Blacktown City Council.
This project has been supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW, and by the Vere Gordon Childe Center at the University of Sydney.
The academic component of the project has been supported by the Alec Glasser Center for the Power of Music and Social Change at University of California Irvine, and by Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Research Centre (SSSHARC) and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) at the University of Sydney.
Essential research assistance and support, visual archives, and soundscapes have been provided by the Collaborative Media Advocacy Platform and Chicoco Media in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Victor Ehikhamenor is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist and writer whose practice explores African cultural heritage, postcolonial politics, and contemporary Nigeria. Rooted in the visual and ritual traditions of the Benin Kingdom, his work spans painting, sculpture, installation, and handmade paper. A Rockefeller Bellagio Fellow and A 2026 Apollo 40 Patrons and Advocates awardee, he has exhibited internationally and represented Nigeria at the 57th Venice Biennale. He is the author of Excuse Me; and Central Hotel. He is the founder of Angels and Muse artist residency as well as the annual Black Muse Art Festival in Nigeria.
Richard Bell is a Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang artist and activist whose practice interrogates the political, cultural and historical relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia. Widely regarded as one of Australia's most significant contemporary artists, his work spans painting, installation, performance and institutional critique, exploring the intersections of Aboriginal sovereignty, self-determination and the ongoing legacies of colonialism.
In 2003 Bell was awarded the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, helping establish him as a leading voice in contemporary Australian art. His work is held in major national and state collections and has been exhibited internationally, including at the National Gallery of Canada, the Biennale of Sydney, Performa New York, the Jakarta Biennale and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. His ongoing project Embassy has become a landmark work of political and artistic intervention, extending conversations about Indigenous rights, representation and nationhood. Bell lives and works in Brisbane, Australia.
Mark LeVine is a Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and African histories and cultures at UC Irvine. A 2020-21 Guggenheim Fellow and award-winning musician and filmmaker, he has held fellowships and residencies at numerous Advanced Studies institutes globally. Among the books he has authored are Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine (California, 2005), Heavy Metal Islam (Random House, 2008), Islam and Popular Culture (Texas 2016), We’ll Play till We Die: Journeys Across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World (California, 2022), and Art Beyond the Edge: Creativity and Conflict in a World on Fire (California 2025). From 2007-19 he was a columnist at Al Jazeera’s flagship English-language news site and channel.
Lucia Sorbera is an Associate Professor in Arab, Islamic and Middle East Studies at the University of Sydney, where she serves as Chair of the Discipline of Arabic Language and Cultures. She is the author of Biography of a Revolution: The Feminist Roots of Human Rights in Egypt (UC Press, 2025), and Sex and Desire in Muslim Cultures. Beyond Norms and Transgression from the Abbasid to the Present Day (I.B. Tauris, 2021), along with numerous other books and essays on women's and gender history in Southwest Asia and North Africa. She co-leads the Research Cluster on Cooperation and Conflict at the University of Sydney’s Vere Gordon Childe Centre and co-edits the "Third Space" section of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies.
