Ikọ is a podcast conceived by artist Otobong Nkanga and curator Sandrine Honliasso in the framework of Nkanga’s ongoing work Carved to Flow, started in 2017 and acting as a support structure for initiatives engaged in nurturing social, cultural and economic life in distant and connected geographies. Ikọ is thought as an elastic space that stretches towards multiple geographies, encompasses distinct fields of study and relate heterogenous practices to arouse new readings and modes of creating meanings, relations and goods. Bringing together a wide range of voices intermingling with various audio proposal, Ikọ seeks to expand approaches to contemporary cultural and artistic practices and to allow a plurality of voices to be heard.

In this episode, Otobong Nkanga will be hosting a conversation between Felwine Sarr Professor of Romance Studies at Duke University (North Carolina) and Shela Sheikh, Lecturer in the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. The discussion draws parallels between ways of understanding and engaging with living and more than living entities that inform economic processes and production of knowledge. Our guests share their reflection on alternative modes of thinking pluralities of tangible and immaterial resources as a way to build communities of living. Within the Ikọ Zone (Part 1) we will listen to two poems written and read by Kechi Nomu, a poet and writer living in Nigeria. For the Ikọ Zone (Part 2) we will be listening to an Ibibio song and a poem written by Utibe-Abasi Nkanga, polyglot and conference interpreter living in Nigeria.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/29611