As the daughter of Nigerian immigrants Ebinama’s studio practice is driven by an ancestral call to understand her personal history in the face of her upbringing in an American society built on false narratives; narratives she never had the privilege of believing in. In creating fantasies, she searches for truth, a more authentic self that rejects cultural hierarchies that have excluded her, while also acknowledging their far-reaching influence. “This work is ultimately a mourning song. It is a desperate attempt to link myself to a nonliterature past where the preservation of knowledge (and ultimately self-preservation) was dependent on ritual and performance. It is an invitation to engage the soul. In its formation, I wondered if perhaps the only real blackness is the blues—that delicate thread connecting me between two dark continents under an unblinking white gaze.” - Chioma Ebinama