The following is the transcript of Ugonna Hosten in conversation with Adjoa Armah on 19th October at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair 2025, discussing her imaginative journey as an artist as well as the ancestral spiritual and cultural roots that define her practice. Watch the video here.
Adjoa:
Thank you all so much for joining us this afternoon. So, we are very privileged to have Ugonna Hoston with us, and we're going to spend the next hour learning more about her practice. So, let's get going.
So, I wanted to start and—because I recognize that the concept of home or origins is very important—and how you think about your work, and how your work came to be…by starting with a bit of biographical grounding, if you could just let us know your background and where home is for you.
Ugonna:
I mean…so I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and lived there till I was seven. My father left in ’88 —so a year before we all moved to London as a family—and at that point, there were four of us—I'm the eldest of five children—so my dad went ahead of us four and set up home for us, and then we joined him in ’89. My parents left behind careers as a teacher, and my dad was a businessman. You know, middle class Nigerians…and coming to London to settle was a whole new beginning.
So, my mum had to retrain as a nurse, and then our family grew and we became five. And my dad made it very clear…I feel like at a very young age, I understood why we made that move, and it was for us to have a steady grounding in terms of our academic backgrounds and, then, making that a through route into choosing a vocation. I understood that, and I felt that sort of expectation to actualize that, especially being a female and being the eldest as well. I felt like I had to realize the ambition that my dad had for us—to go down the academic route…so, I feel like that gives up—in terms of where I am now as an artist—that gives the context as to what the value systems were in my home.
And also, I was brought up in a Roman Catholic household. I went through all the traditional rights…my baptism, Holy Communion, confirmation, and then, later on, marrying in the Roman Catholic Church. I feel like it was probably when I was 18—when I started dating my now husband, who's from Trinidad— that I started to take off these expectations and try to find my own value system. That was a starting point for me to really try to search for what I wanted for my life. It was a very traditional family. You know, I was expected to marry an Igbo as well. So, to go down that path of dating someone from Trinidad—someone from the Caribbean—was the beginning of me…to set my own path.
Yeah, I studied criminology as a degree, and worked in the civil service for a couple of years and I began to feel this sense of unease in my in my vocation. It was also at the same time that we began—my husband and I—began a family, that I again went through this journey, this process of establishing what it was that I wanted: not only for my children and my family unit, but what I wanted for my life. And it became clear to me that I wanted something different. I didn't know what it was then, but I knew that it wasn't within the criminal justice system, it wasn't within the civil service, and that's where the journey began of me trying to find my foot vocationally.
Adjoa:
Thank you for that. I mean, I'm really struck in your work by it…perhaps it's not a tension, but being on this journey of trying to find yourself and how that is still very, very rooted and connected, right? So, it's not a case of trying to find yourself necessitating letting go of everything…perhaps trying to find yourself gets you back towards something in your own past or in your own history that might have been lost a generation prior, but it's kind of present in previous generations…and so…that it's not necessary to let go of everything in order to come into yourself, is very interesting.
Ugonna:
Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree with that. I feel like—in terms of my criminology degree—having this grounding of this interesting analysis first of all, and this idea of piecing fragments together, is something that I feel like my practice is rooted in. Initially, a lot of my drawings had their beginnings in collages, but then—now, moving forward—I'm referencing my own photographs that I have in my personal archive. But then, you know, piecing them together to create a new narrative. Like you said, it is this chemical process of understanding that, in the whole process…the things that we find as base material can actually be transformed into something a lot more luminous and a lot more enriching to to life. Nothing is ever thrown away. It's just part of the cycle, part of the process of a rebirth.
Adjoa:
We have a couple of images up on the screen. How I wanted this conversation to take shape, is to maybe talk through the various spatial or dimensional modes in your work—both imagined or intangible and also concrete. You have four works on display in the booth. So, you have ‘In the womb of Ala’, you have ‘The Departure’, and you have the two collage works. I wanted to start by talking through ‘In the womb [of Ala]’, of a large sense of how that work came to be.
Ugonna:
So, I think the best place to start is with who Ebezina is. I had a dream of this figure. This is a drawing that I made after the dream on the left, and it was through realizing this figure…After I made the drawing, I began to—through my reading and through my research—understand this process of active imagination that's used in psychoanalysis. And active imagination—the way I use active imagination—is through questioning. This image of the figure that I saw in a dream felt inviting, and I wanted to—through my imagination—ask the figure questions. It was a serious series of questions that became known to me…or, I personified this figure as a guardian spirit and my chi…because I'm specifically talking or drawing from my Igbo heritage…
This figure, Ebezina…I think, to talk about its anatomy really describes, for me…on the right-hand side, you can probably see the…there's a sort of…for me, it's quite phallic. At the back, it's got this thing sticking out of it. And then it has a wing as well. And it's organic in its form as well. To me, it speaks to this figure being able to guide the pilgrim through all these various terrains: whether it's in the depths—with its phallic form that has on its back—or through flight.
So ‘In the womb of Ala’…Ala is an Igbo deity and is known as being Earth Mother. For me, this speaks to a lot of alchemical emblems, that talk of transformation or when you're going through a process of transformation—that there has to be an element of separation…so the head, being the locus of consciousness, is separated from the body. And what I was thinking through was this idea of Ebezina helping the pilgrim to get to a higher place of consciousness by rooting that consciousness within Igbo land heritage. You know, these stratas of history. And the head is a seed. The head is a seed to be nurtured by the soil, to be nurtured by the Earth. It's work about the relationship with Mother as well. So there's a sense of the head taking root in this land. And it's also taking place in full moon. In the almanac calendar, that’s the best time to sow a seed.
Adjoa:
I'm interested in…if you're still —you encountered Ebezinafirst in dreams —are you still encountering this figure?
Ugonna:
No, no, I'm not. That's a really good question. It's just through active imagination now. That's the thing, there might be a possibility, but it's just that sometimes I don't remember my dreams. In the initial stages of my research, I had very vivid dreams, which I initially documented by either writing the words, or…yeah, writing the words. Or, in the case of the Ebezina drawing, I think that was the only instant that this figure had…I felt like I had to document what this figure looked like. And then subsequent dreams are written. And then I've made…maybe two drawings, three drawings out of dream journals. But I realized that—to have a dream journal—for me was disturbing my sleep, because I would wake up and I'm psychoanalyzing it at 2am in the morning. It's just like…no, this is not the best time. So, for now, it's through active imagination, through this journaling and writing questions and living with the questions as well.
I'm very interested in the unconscious, this idea that there is a part of us that has its own autonomy and wants to realize itself through me, through ego, through…but there has to be some sort of transformation. There has to be an integration of knowledge, and there has to be unification of opposites as well. And that's partly what's what's happening here.
I would say that, elementally, on the right-hand side, we're talking about the earth element, and then on the left—with the ‘Songs of the unfurling’—we're in a water realm. I'm using the elements as a way to seek these marginalized ways of knowing, that are embodied in nature, to…shed light on the transforming of the self. So—the question, if I was to question, or if I was to articulate that in a question—would be: how is nature showing me, or showing this pilgrim, how to transform…how to integrate it with higher knowledge?
Adjoa:
I'm interested in the pilgrim, and because Ebezina is your chi, whether actually this work is—to a certain degree—like a self portrait. Is the pilgrim you? Is it a version of you?
Ugonna:
I think it's partly autobiographical. I've been on this journey for 20 years, trying to…you get a sense that what the Pilgrim is seeking is wholeness, and to feel like there's some sort of rhythmic accord to a sense of calling. I feel that way in terms of the fact that, after leaving the civil service, I've tried various ways—or I've been in various vocations—and tried to put my artistic practice in the background, and it's made itself known that it can't be that way.
I've come to realize that I've had to reorientate my life. It's an ontological value system that's been created, that part of my being is making. And…I have to organize everything else around that. So, from my personal life story of realizing, or coming to these realizations, I've developed the stories and tried to think of these moments of realizations through works that are more symbolic, or in a metaphor.
I've had to…going back to my upbringing...in terms of my family of origin, like I said, having this academia in the household…which was very enriching…and religion as well…I had to—in terms of what the ego is— it's a place of willpower, intellect, and—as a pilgrim, or for spiritual growth—it's…I had to re-orientate myself around other value systems, other ways of knowing, whether that's a feeling function, bringing that to the fore and bringing that to offer up whilst making the work…
So yes, my work is…I research, I read quite a bit, but then there's a sense that at some point I have to let go of that and allow…the work is—in terms of how it's realized—it's also realized through other functions. I'm also interested in—when you read everything, and when it settles in the psyche—what comes up, how does it sit there? What images arise from that space? So, it is autobiographical, and because I've had to make that shift from just being academic, to then using that space of imagination as a way to to make or to think things through.
Adjoa:
In these moments where you're having a calling…and, I think sometimes when you're being called towards a higher purpose, it can be very disruptive…and it can be very easy to kind of be like, okay, be quiet—I'm doing other stuff, I'm living life…how did you immediately accept your calling when it came? Or, did it take a long time and was there a lot of stubbornness before you yielded?
Ugonna:
Yeah, yeah. This is it. This is it. This is a moment of surrender. I think this work…a call answered…is the title of this work. The gesture of the pilgrim is very much one of surrendering. And I think the figures at the bottom as well…for me, I'm reading their uniform as military, which encapsulates this idea of being summoned. Like I said, I've tried to put it in the background…and it is, it was very disruptive in terms of wanting to ground myself in something that I felt comfortable with intellectually. But then, in the heart, not feeling that sense of fulfillment and having to answer to that, and then figuring out—okay, well, what is it?
This image just speaks to the fact that there were several…there were several times where, in my mind, I felt like I got it—I felt like I knew what I had to do—but then, the life energy, the libido—which the horse is symbolic of—wasn't necessarily there, to propel me on the journey of making. At this point, it's an alignment of ego, of the female figure saying yes to the call and also backed by the life energy as well, to actualize the journey.
Adjoa:
You've already kind of started answering my next question, but I wanted to go back to your dream journal, because you've spoken about how important psychoanalysis is in how you think, and also your relationship with dreaming. It’s creative…the psychoanalytic analysis is kind of scientific, and also it's a spiritual practice, right? And these are ways of being that are asymmetrically valued, or positioned in certain hierarchies where some are higher, or placed above others.
The first part of the question is: the journal, as a textual document, what that means for your work? Do you consider that to be a part of the work, which is private, or is it something else?
Then, secondly: how you are, how you're dealing with this asymmetry, and how you're relating to the dream space, and how it's to be understood?
Ugonna:
So, is my dream journal part of—so your first question—is my dream journal…part of my work?
Adjoa:
Or maybe, is writing? Do you consider writing a practice?
Ugonna:
Yes, definitely. I think, when you came for a studio visit, I was talking about how sometimes work is conceptualized through words and or sometimes the work is realized, and then, through words…so when the work is realized, all I have is an image, but I might not have the words to describe what it is. And it's the through the process of writing that I then gain insight into what the work is about, what the title is, what…where is the heroin right now on this journey? So, words are very important for opening new vistas and new ideas, new possibilities, but also grounding as well.
Adjoa:
And how about the tension in the different parts of how you're thinking, about how dreams are valued?
Ugonna:
I think the tension is what creates new life, and not wanting to resolve that tension, I think, is what makes this space feel very generative. I feel that they're both in dialogue with each other.
There's a drawing that I have, currently shown at Tiwani Contemporary, and it's specifically from a dream space, and it's called ‘My Mother's Decree’. And when I made the body of work that showed at York in 2023, there were two works from the dream space that I realized through drawing. The one that I wanted to talk about was ‘My Mother's Decree’, which started as writing…I journaled it down after I had the dream…and I wasn't quite sure how I was going to realize it.
It had my mother in it. It had the horse again in it, but the horse was on the ground, latent. And there were certain symbols that —through writing more about it, after the dream—that begun to feel like they were speaking or telling me something that I needed to know.
It was a separate conversation I was having with my mom about what I was doing in terms of research, and letting her know that I was researching into Igbo spirituality, and how interesting it was. And she said: “Your great grandmother was a healer,” so casually, and I was just like, “What on earth?” And she said…she began telling me a story about how my great grandmother had so much insight that people used to from all around Nigeria to come and see her.
She told me that my great grandmother had a skill of…when people were approaching the house, she would ward them off if she felt like they had ill intentions. It was this gesture that she did that then spurred, or made me remember, about the dream that I had, and—in that moment—I took the picture of her. And…so there was a sense of synchronicity: the fact that having this conversation with her and the gesture reminded me of a dream, and then, in that same dream—like I said—was the horse's head that was laying latent on the ground. And my husband and I went for a walk in our local meadows and turned the corner and saw a field of horses. Sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. This time we were lucky enough that they were in this sort of pen, and a horse just slowly approached the fence and then made that action of kind of bowing down, then came closer to the fence, then put his head on the fence as well.
Initially, with that drawing that I wanted to realize, I was just going to use source image for the horse's head, and it was the fact that…there were several horses in the field, but it was this particular one that approached us…and I just began taking photographs…so I definitely feel that in those experiences, that space-time is collapsed. Using the word—specifically synchronicity—it's speaking about something that's happened within me, through the dream space, and then in my waking life how I'm seeing all these unravelings and all these…illuminations, these…things that amplify my dream life. It feels like there's a synergy between the two of them, and that experience propelled me…it was a catalyst to realizing the work.
Adjoa:
It's great that you've mentioned your grandmother, because this is a good chance to move from the dream space, and what that means in your practice, to the ancestral realm as spaces that are perhaps linked…thinking about ‘[The] Departure’ and the conditions that you produce that work in…
Ugonna:
So, ‘[The] Departure’ is the drawing on the left, which I'm showing with Ed Cross. If you haven't been already, it's D8, and…what's that? E11. Sorry, yeah, E11. Sorry, remind me of your question again Adjoa…
Adjoa:
Let's move into the ancestral realm…maybe just talk us through the process in producing this work and what we're looking at.
Ugonna:
So, ‘[The] Departure was made this year, and I felt like I really wanted to establish or speak about what got me down this path in the first place, in terms of my interests in researching my heritage. And it was the passing of my father, and my sister as well. The two images at the top left, with the female—the woman encircled by these women—and the titled men approaching the compound, I took at my father's funeral in the village. That was one of the things—that my dad passed away 10 years ago—and it's taken me 10 years to process the loss…but also wanting to speak about that, as a catalyst and a reason for why I wanted to delve into understanding a bit more about my heritage and the rites of passage that they have within that.
The woman on the left is my mother…and seeing her being held in this circle…the women were singing and she was being helped to get through this, transitioning from wife to widow. It was so moving. It was so touching. As a widow, you can pay your respects in various different ways. But my mother chose to go through the ritual of shaving her head to pay her respects. And the titled men came into the compound to pay their respects.
It was just those two images that I knew that I wanted to have in the drawing. So, that was the starting point…to ground—what it was that propelled me forward to—researching Igbo spirituality and mythologies.
All the other images around it really amplify this sense of how I felt at that moment. The child on the top right-hand side, kind of reaching out into this unknown space of potential…working in graphite is a very slow process, and it was the process of drawing…there was a lady that's holding a bowl underneath the head of the widow…then her dress, her cloth, has an emblem of St Anthony on it. It was only through making that and really spending time with the fabric, that I looked into— “Oh, who is this person?“…obviously, it's got the text ‘St Anthony’ and I went into looking at who St Anthony is, and he's revered for journeys. He's called upon to bless new journeys, as well as—if you lose something—he's also called upon for lost items to help you retrieve them. It felt very fitting, discovering that he was present in that moment of me embarking on a new journey, me retrieving lost knowledge—Indigenous ways of knowing. And then, it's also amplified on the right-hand side: I took a series of pictures last year in in Venice…I just loved these small altars in the alleyways and started taking photographs of them. It was again, through that process of looking, through that process of slow looking, that I remembered that this saint was actually in my own personal archive, and then using that—bringing that back into the drawing—to amplify the fact that there is still a sense of syncretism at play…that this woman is taking part in an ancient ritual… yet she's wearing an emblem from the Catholic Church. The bottom left half is, again, this feeling of the unknown being expressed. The heroine is heading out to embark on her journey.
So, it is very much a long, non-linear story that I make work in relation to my feeling function—what feels necessary to address right now—and that felt like I needed to make work addressing the beginnings, really. Like you said, it was very much rooted in knowledge of the ancestors. It was such a moving and touching experience that my question was: what more is there, that I haven't been told about?
Adjoa:
Thank you. This is a question I wanted to ask a bit later, but—because you've been speaking about how you source images, and I know that you're working with some museum images— I would like to hear you speak a little bit about the imagery that you're working with. How do you think about the relationship or connections between your personal archive, perhaps a museum archive, found imagery, family archives, and how they're in dialogue with one another?
Ugonna:
So…this is the first image—this is ‘Proclamation of the co-creator’ that showed in Frieze. —this is one of the first images where I've used museum archive. So, the backdrop is actually from the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology in Cambridge, and it was a photograph taken by an anthropologist. Just at the bottom, it had a note that—when a woman first conceives—she puts an offering in the forest as a thanks, as a form of thanksgiving. It's this form that caught my eye, really. Obviously, I know that—and a lot of people are aware that—these photographs were taken to assist in colonizing…the process of colonization…and for me to reclaim that image and re-contextualize it is an important part of my process.
It's using this image that I think worked really well with what I was trying to say with this moment: that the heroine has come into rhythmic accord with her calling; her chi—her guardian spirit—is behind her, and she's playing the ogene, which is a symbol of life. AndEbezina has his hand on her heart. There's a sense of rhythmic accord. There's a sense of owning the fact that the pilgrim is called to make with her other half. This divine double. To bring the two together…of the offering made in the forest…a place that, in psychoanalysis, is symbolically known as this place of the unknown…I just thought that it worked really well.
I tend not to have a clear idea completely of how it is that I want to realize the work. Sometimes, it is literally one part of the image or a figure that…I think the ogene, which is this iron gong—like I said, it’s a symbol of life—and it's either appeared in the title of the work or…it's also appeared in this male figure here playing the ogene…so I tend to have a clear idea of, perhaps, what I want to say and how that can be. Certain archetypes might be present in the work to amplify a certain energy, and then it's a process of allowing space for something to emerge—to complete the drawing. So it's very much like a conversation between…a relationship with this unknown aspect…not to say that there is no insertion….like I said at the beginning, it's like: I would like to say this. What do you think? How would you…how can we work together to make this work?
Adjoa:
This conversation has flown by. So, I think we have 10 minutes left. I have loads of questions, but I want to give the audience the opportunity to ask some…and I guess I want to end with a statement. When we go to the audience, we should ask questions—not statements—but I’ll end with a statement.
What struck me when I was in your studio, and especially because you mentioned graphite is a difficult material to work with: you're an artist that deals with very big questions of life and death and consciousness, and you're working with these difficult materials that are also carbon-based materials…the materiality of the works themselves is made out of an element that is foundational to the causability of [inaudible]…which is something that I'm very struck by in your work. I guess I just wanted to say that, because I think the material itself lends quite a lot of significance to what is going on, on the page.
Ugonna:
I work with both graphite and charcoal, and a lot of the time it's—again—employing that feeling function to decide how the work needs to be realized. Sometimes, I have an image of a certain aspect of the work, but then I ask: “How does it feel?” And some works feel a bit more dreamy. Dream-like. ‘[The] Departure’ is, for me…there's a sense of collapse of space and time. My dad passing happened 10 years ago, but then the images around it are more recent…so it's almost these happenings that illuminate that feeling. In the dream space, everything collapses…and I think graphite lends itself to that luminosity, that space of things being interconnected. Whereas, although charcoal has this sort of…they feel very statement-like…very strong and graphic…there's still an element of…the quality of the line in a charcoal reverberates on paper. So, already I feel like I'm inviting other forms to come into the process of making as well.
Adjoa:
Yeah, that’s very interesting about graphite. Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you everyone for coming, and can we have a round of applause for Ugonna?
