Imo Nse Imeh

My name is Imo Nse Imeh. I am a visual artist and a scholar of African Diaspora aesthetics. As the son of Nigerian immigrants, my own familial history has been a tremendous inspiration in my search for knowledge about Ibibio and southeast Nigerian objects, rituals, and aesthetic philosophies. At Yale, my research addressed the arts of Africa and the Black Diaspora, especially regarding corporeality, adornment, transfiguration, gender performance, and ritual demonstrations of sanguinity. I was invited to present portions from this unique project at the prestigious 98th Annual College Arts Association Conference (2010) as a panelist in the “Arts of Africa: Recent Issues and Trends” forum. At present, my most engaging project has been the publication of my first book Daughters of Seclusion: The revelation of the Ibibio “Fattened Bride” as the Icon of Beauty and Power, and a series of engaging paintings and drawings that are the visual embodiment of my research on Cross River, Nigeria traditional art forms and practices.

Daughters of Seclusion is a culmination of my doctoral research and further considerations after my research at Yale. It is based on original research that I conducted in the Nigerian cities of Lagos, Calabar, and Uyo (specifically Ebiene Atai, an Ibibio-Annang village where I witnessed most of the ritual events that I discuss in my book). This project considers a culture of ceremonial seclusion, decoration, and identity construction as it is revealed through a ritual known as mbopo. Mbopo is a women’s ceremony in Ibibioland, Nigeria whose chief characteristics are the ritual confinement and fattening of girls prior to marriage. The objective of my research is to isolate a visual aesthetic that is specific to Ibibio culture. I argue that mbopo ritual is inextricably connected to regional conceptions of beauty, power, literacy, and spirituality in Ibibio provinces. My book is largely art historical, dealing specifically with objects that are either connected with or that reference mbopo. These include puppets, skin-covered masks, funerary shrines, atal stone sculptures, and ceremonial textiles found throughout Cross River, Nigeria. However, my analysis of this traditional women’s ritual expands into a broader conversation about the appearance of the iconic “fattened bride” in contemporary Ibibio diaspora art. The unique nature of my project has required me to consider critical theories in different disciplines including music, women’s studies, aesthetic philosophy, ethnography, anthropology, and performance (including conceptual art, dance, and theatre). Ultimately, my doctoral and book projects have revealed the great void in research, not only around Ibibio/ Cross River objects, but also in the amazing aesthetic philosophies that surround rituals of seclusion and fatness in West Africa. I always seek opportunities to go deeper into these areas of study, in hopes of determining the extent to which these traditional practices (and the resultant objects) have influenced contemporary African diasporic art forms and ideologies.