On Thursday, May 4, 2023, G.A.S. Foundation hosted Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? , an immersive installation and performance by G.A.S. Fellow and Farm House resident, Tobi Onabolu. With two showings of his performance, and an installation showing photography and poetry from the duration of his residency.
Across video, photography, sound, poetry, and performance, this multimedia body of work interrogated the process of liberating the subconscious mind and the body from external forces of control. With the increasing imposition of digital technology, organized religion, hegemonic socio-economic systems, and cultural normativity on our minds and bodies; all of which are ubiquitous within our daily lived experiences, Tobi questioned what remains of the human's "natural instincts?”
ABOUT TOBI ONABOLU
Currently based in Grand Popo, Benin Republic, Tobi Onabolu is an artist and writer who works in an interdisciplinary and collaborative style across moving image, poetry, and performance. Interrogating the process of inner-child reconnection, Tobi uses his body and lived experience as a conceptual point of departure. His practice is concerned with expanding consciousness through space and across time, as an avenue for personal and collective healing. Playing with breathwork, movement, and dance, his work evokes the ethereal, considering humans beyond their physical form, as energetic and spiritual beings.
He holds an MA in African Studies from SOAS, with a thesis on his great uncle, Aina Onabolu, the founding father of Nigerian modernism. He is a Film London Artist Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) Fellow; a G.A.S. Foundation Fellow; and is an Artistic Advisory Board member for Culturescapes Biennale, Basel. Exhibition and performance highlights include Videotage, Hong Kong; RCA, London; and the Royal Albert Hall, London.
