George Osodi, Nigerian, born 1974
Smoking Pipe (from the series Oil Rich Niger Delta), 2007
In the article “Pale Reflections and Fables of Life: George Osodi’s Real People of the Niger Delta” (2010), art historian Frank A. O. Ugiomoh features multiple works of George Osodi. Smoking Pipe is one particular photograph showing two young men on a motorbike riding past a thick cloud of smoke from an oil pipeline explosion in Ogoniland, Nigeria. The surrounding environment looks uprooted as if it would be desolate. However, there are evidently people inhabiting the space. The men in the photograph are riding away from the site of the explosion. They appear relatively unbothered and their attention is away from the smoke. This creates an image as though the black clouds are somewhat ordinary and just another part of the landscape. Osodi captures how a shocking and terrifying event can be normal from other perspectives such as those who have been exposed to unhealthy amounts of oil pollution in the Niger Delta for a number of years. Label by Jordan Stofko