Senam Awo Okudzeto

Place: Chicago

Born: 1972

Biography:

Senam Okudzeto is an American and British artist and educator, born in Chicago in 1972 to an American mother and Ghanaian father. She grew up between London, Chicago, and Lagos. Okudzeto received a bachelor's degree from the Slade School of Fine Art in 1995 and a master's degree from the Royal College of Art in 1997. She continued with post-graduate studies in the Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) at the Whitney Museum of American Art and earned a doctorate in the field of Humanities and Cultural Studies from the London Consortium and Birkbeck, University of London in 2022. Okudzeto's work incorporates writing, scholarly research, and art practice within a wide range of mediums, including painting, film, installation, and social sculpture. Her methodological practice of 'Afro-Dada' explores global connectivity, modernity, and the relationships between Africa, the diasporas, and the rest of the world. Her installations are designed to represent forgotten or unnoticed forms of material and architectural culture as carriers of lost or hidden histories, especially stories about the genesis of contemporary West Africa and its diaspora.