Tied to the Other Side

Otobong Nkanga

2021

A monumental woven tapestry in which Otobong Nkanga overlays deep indigo weaving, embroidered accents, and found-object motifs to bind material histories, extraction, and bodily presence into a single speculative landscape.

The work hits you with a dense, night‑blue field alive with shimmering dots and layered marks, a fan of golden threads projecting from the left, upright poles and drifting canoe‑like forms, and coral‑like growths that make the surface feel simultaneously underwater, mapped, and stitched with memory.

Nkanga reclaims tapestry—a historically domestic craft—as a politicized contemporary medium, making visible entanglements of ecology, labor, and colonial extraction while bridging painting, sculpture, and textile traditions.

Palette

Art Terms

Contemporary art Found object Landscape African diaspora Textile

Exhibitions

The Arts for Television

1989

Ballet Drawings by Franklin C. Watkins for "Transcendence"; Model b...

1946

Nakian

1966

Wall Hangings from the Collection

1986