Mallam Mudi Yahaya

Mudi Yahaya (* 1968 in Kano) is a visual artist, photographer, filmmaker, archivist, afromusicophile, writer and curator. Oliver Enwonwu, founder of the internationally active Omeneka Gallery, calls Yahaya one of the "leading contemporary artists from Nigeria". In Artists Of Nigeria, Onyema Offoedu-Okeke describes him as "unique" among contemporary Nigerian artists and goes on to say that his "lucid essays" on photography alone "have made his work remarkable". Mudi Yahaya lives and works in Lagos.
==Work==
Mallam Mudi Yahaya is a visual artist whose work explores interpretations of African hybrid identities and their varied visual dialects, currencies, and vocabularies. With the massive digitization of media data, Mallam Mudi Yahaya investigates aesthetics that connect postcolonial African identities mediated by still photography and cinema. Mallam Mudi Yahaya’s work further focuses on the relationship and tension between images as they interact with notions and strategies of post-colonial deconstruction of African identities in syncretic African spaces and non-spaces. His interest in identity construction extends to photography archives, where he conceptually explores counter-narratives of photographic representation.
==Exhibitions (selection)==
2023: Al'umma - Society Celebrating Life, Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth, Germany
2022: Things Fall Apart - Film Stills By Stephen Goldblatt, Cineteca Nacional, Mexico City, Mexico
2022: The Respectful Gaze - From The Estate Of Nina Fischer-Stephan, Tinubu Square, Lagos, Nigeria
2016: Being and Becoming: Complexities of the African Identity, UNISA Art Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
2015: Bamako Encounters, African Biennale of Photography, Bamako, Mali
2015: Conrad's Circus - For Crown and Country, RomAfrica Film Festival RAFF, Cinema Extention, Rom, Italy
2015: Sights & Sounds Of Nigeria, Jewish Museum, New York, USA
2014: Innovate – Heritage, ZK/U Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, Germany
2013: Time To Pretend - Constructions Of Heritage, Memory & Belonging, First Floor Gallery, Harare, Zimbabwe
2013: MOP5 - The Cape Town Month Of Photography, South African Centre for Photography, Cape Town, South Africa
2012: How To Tame Ghosts, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
2012: Conrad's Circus - For Crown and Country, Goethe-Institut Lagos, Nigeria
2012: Fresh Vernacular, Lagos, Nigeria
2011: The Ruptured Landscape, Centre For Contemporary Art (CCA), Lagos, Nigeria
2011: Summer Show, Brundyn + Gonsalves Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2011: FAX - Independent Curators International, South London Gallery, Great Britain
2011: VAN Video Art Network Lagos, Media Art Screening, Lagos, Nigeria
2011: VAN Video Art Network Lagos, IN-SHORT, International Short Film Festival, Lagos, Nigeria
2011: Crosscurrents, Omenka Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria
2010: Reconstruction In Reverse, Omenka Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria
2009: A Perspective on Contemporary Nigerian Photography, Omenka Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria
==Curated exhibitions==
2013: National Pop-Up Theater, Goethe-Institut Lagos in der Federal Government Press, Lagos, Nigeria
2012: Fresh Vernacular, Lagos, Nigeria
2011: O, Lagos, Nigeria
==Filmography (selection)==
2022: Nina Fischer-Stephan's Respectful Gaze, Director, Documentary, 40 min
2018: Skin, Documentary, 76 min
2014–2016: Ogas At The Top, Screenplay, TV series
2014: A Place In The Stars, Still Photographer, Thriller, 1:52 min
==Nominations==
2015: Prix Pictet Prize (Nomination), Switzerland
2014: Prix Pictet Prize (Nomination), Switzerland
==Publications==
TEN CITIES: Clubbing in Nairobi, Cairo, Kyiv, Johannesburg, Berlin, Naples, Luanda, Lagos, Bristol, Lisbon 1960 – March 2020, Published by Johannes Hossfeld Etyang, Joyce Nyairo, Florian Sievers, Spector Books, Leipzig 2020, ISBN 978-3-944669-79-3, Mudi Yahaya: TEN CITIES - REsearch Participants - Mudi Yahaya. 29. October 2014
The National War Museum, Umuahia, Development Alternatives and Resource Center, Carolina Academic Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1611638806, cap-press.com
Reconstruction In Reverse : A Photographic Exhibition, Deconstructing The Displaced And Misinterpreted Nigerian Identity, Revilo Company Limited, Lagos, Nigeria, 2010, ISBN 9789789113699
==Literature==
Artists Of Nigeria, by Onyema Offoedu-Okeke, USA 2019, ISBN 978-88-7439-547-7
Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography, and the 1980s (The Visual Arts of Africa and its Diasporas), Duke University Press, UK 2019, ISBN 978-1-4780-0236-9
Telling Time, RENCONTRES DE BAMAKO BIENNALE AFRICAINE DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE, Published by Bisi Silva, Antawan I. Byrd, Yves Chatap, Kehrer Verlag, Germany 2015, ISBN 978-3-86828-669-4
New Spaces for Negotiating Art (and) Histories in Africa, Published by Kerstin Pinther, Berit Fischer, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, Lit-Verlag, Germany 2015, ISBN 978-3-643-90626-7
Lagos - A City At Work, by Olakunle Tejuoso, Nigeria 2007, ISBN 978-056-606-6
Category:1968 births
Category:People from Kano
Category:Visual artists
Category:Photographers
Category:Filmmakers
Category:Archivists