Talk with Emeka Ogboh by Ricardo September 15, 2019 0 Events, News, Post-Archive

Date: 17 September 2019 | Tuesday | 6pm
Address: Rua Damasceno Monteiro 12, Graça
Free Admission
Talk in English

Fotografia © Jean Picon 2019

Sufferhead Original is a craft beer project inspired by the food tastes and experiences of Africans living in Europe, and communicates some of the received stereotypes, politics of difference and integration associated with their expatriate fate. The Sufferhead beer is developed based on feedback from interacting with Africans living in Europe, and these interactions covered topics on migration, assimilation and multiculturalism. The resultant data inspired the development of the beer recipe.

In addition to beer brewing, the project explores African immigrant experiences through the branding of the beer; channeling labels, clichés, and occurrences into creating advertisements.

The name ‘Sufferhead’ derives from the 1981 track by Fela Kuti, ‘Original Suffer Head’, where Fela sings about the deplorable political and economic situation in Nigeria at that time. The 80’s was a decade of mass emigration by Nigerians due to the harsh economic and political situation in the country.

The Sufferhead beer project was launched in Germany in 2015, and then followed up with the Kassel edition as a Documenta 14 artwork by Emeka Ogboh in 2017.

Since then Sufferhead Original has been developed across different cities in Europe, including Baden-Baden, Frankfurt, and an ongoing Paris edition. Each city is a unique experience, with a beer carefully conceived an inspired by the city.

Fela Kuti – “Sufferhead original”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXDElcfSdy4
Excerto de um anúncio publitário da ‘Sufferhead Original’ criado por Emeka Ogboh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=H3VLAwJpaXA
Damn Magazine
https://www.damnmagazine.net/2017/09/17/documenta-14/

About Emeka Ogboh:
Emeka Ogboh connects to places with his senses of hearing and taste. Through his audio installations and gastronomic works, Ogboh explores how private, public, collective memories and histories are translated, transformed and encoded into sound and food. These works contemplate how sound and food capture existential relationships, frame our understanding of the world and provide a context in which to ask critical questions on immigration, globalization, and post-colonialism.
Ogboh has participated in numerous exhibitions including documenta 14, (2017), Athens and Kassel, Skulptur Projekte Münster (2017), the 56th edition of La Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2015), and Dakar Biennale (2014). Ogboh was awarded Prize the Sharjah Biennial 14 prize with Otobong Nkanga, and in 2018 was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize.

Scientific coordination and organized by Mónica de Miranda
This project is part of the project  Post-Archive: Politics of Memory, Place and Identity, CITCOM-CEC-FLUL
This project was produced with national funding from the FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. under the project UIDB/00509/2020.