Victoria-Idongesit Udondian | |
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| Born | 1982 (age 43–44) Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria |
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Victoria-Idongesit Udondian (born 1982), also known as Victoria Udondian, is a Nigerian artist. Specializing in textile work, installations, and performance art, her work often involves themes of Black history, labour, and the global trade of secondhand clothing. She is a 2019 MacDowell Fellow and a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow.
Victoria-Idongesit Udondian was born in 1982 in Akwa Ibom State. [1] After training as a fashion designer and tailor, [2] she obtained a BA in Painting from the University of Uyo in 2004. [1] Udondian recalled that during her time at Uyo, she once had to take a night bus "about 450 miles to Lagos" to get enough oil paint for her university course. [3] She cites Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui as an influence in her work. [3]
In 2010, Udondian travelled throughout Africa to resource the continent's cultural and economic relationship with the global trade of secondhand clothing. [4] Her textile work Aso Ikele (1948) was part of the 2012 Manchester art show We Face Forward: Art from West Africa Today; AfricanaH said that it "takes the Whitworth's textile collection as its starting point", [4] while Bob Dickinson of Art Monthly remarked that it draws from the way "trade underlines the history of West Africa's relationship with Manchester from slave-trade days to the industrial revolution", as well as the 1945 Pan-African Congress. [5] She appeared at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. [4] In 2016, she obtained an MFA in Sculpture and New Genres from Columbia University [1] and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. [6] In 2017, she started her project The Republic of Unknown Territory while becoming a naturalized American citizen. [7]
Udondian was a MacDowell Fellow in 2019. [8] In 2020, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts. [9] In 2022, she held her first New York City solo exhibition at Smack Mellon, How Can I Be Nobody, an installation which uses black-colored fabric "in acknowledgement of the black and brown lives lost in search of better conditions". [7] She met several Brooklyn immigrant communities as part of her research for How Can I Be Nobody. [2] In collaboration with dancer Raven McRae and choreographer Danion Lewis, she started the performance installation Nsi nam mi ke ndi that same year. [2]
Udondian's work appeared at the 2023 British Textile Biennial. [10] She won a 2024 Anonymous Was a Woman Environmental Art Grant for her work Okrika Reclaimed. [11] A collaboration with the Foundation for Contemporary Art, Okrika Reclaimed appeared at Kantamanto on 12 July 2025. [10] Udondian remarked that some of her work, including Okrika Reclaimed, is designed to question the trend of secondhand clothing by addressing Africa's growing problem with textile waste. [10] She will appear at the 61st Venice Biennale. [12]
Ayanna Dozier remarked that themes of Udondian's artwork often involve "unseen" forms of labour and stereotypically feminine work, including domestic work, the service industry, and the textile industry. [2] Additionally, Udondian focuses on the relationship between clothing and identity as a theme. [13]
As of 2022, Udondian was based in Lagos and Brooklyn. [2] She is also a visiting associate professor at the Center for the Arts, University at Buffalo, and she served as interim director of graduate studies during their fall 2025 semester. [13]