Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1955 Nigeria

Year of Migration to the UK: 1975

Other name/s: Osunwunmi

Biography

Artist and illustrator Folake Shoga was born in Nigeria in 1955. She immigrated to the UK around the mid-1970s and studied at Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic. Her broad art practice encompasses varied media, including moving images, sculpture, and drawing, while focusing on themes of race and femininity. Her works purposefully evoke uncertainty as she navigates spaces that simultaneously marginalise and exoticise mixed-heritage women as exotic hybrids. Using her body as a focal point, Shoga often maps the desires and identities of mixed-race women, venturing into territories of the psyche that defy easy definition. Her method is dialectical, intertwining time and space through rapid cuts and narrative fragmentation. This approach invites reflection on the tensions between technology and tradition, suggesting a path for contemporary African art to move beyond academic formalism. Occasionally, she has adopted the name Osunwunmi in her writing, which references the Yoruba Orisha (sacred entities central to the Yoruba religion of West Africa and various African diaspora faiths), serving both as a model and a source of inspiration.

Shoga has participated in several important UK exhibitions focused on promoting Black artists. In 1986, her works were included in Tangled Roots, which explored themes of personal history, cultural background, and self-representation, organised by the group Black Women in View. Formed in 1984 at the Brixton Art Gallery, this group of Black female artists began as a collaborative collective dedicated to supporting and showcasing diverse artistic practices. Their main objective was to provide Black women with the opportunity to exhibit their work while challenging stereotypes that often undermine women’s art or pigeonhole Black art into narrow or political categories. Over the years, they organised exhibitions, workshops, and collaborative projects, engaging in political and cultural initiatives to highlight both artistic creation and social involvement. Despite the lack of funding, the group continued its support for Black artists. Shoga also participated in Four X 4, an exhibition featuring sixteen artists across four gallery spaces and a key event for establishing black British artists, with her work showcased at The City Gallery in Leicester in 1991. In 1994, Shoga’s work was included in Seen/Unseen at Liverpool’s Bluecoat Gallery. Curated by Olu Oguibe, this exhibition of five UK-based African artists, Shoga, Uzo Egonu, Libaina Himid, Olu Oguibe, and Yinka Shonibare, ran alongside the Liverpool Tate’s Africa Explores, which faced widespread criticism for its largely anthropological stance. In contrast, Seen/Unseen was rooted in a different vision of Africa, challenging the flawed effort to confine diverse practices within an imagined geographical mythology. In her intricate installation, Shoga blended elements of documentary with artistic practice. Her video served as a performative inquiry into the complexities of identity, resonating with echoes of artistic influence, while featuring conversations among the women of mixed heritage involved in the project. In 1997, her work was included in the exhibition Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain 1966 – 1996 which was presented by The Caribbean Cultural Center in New York, with exhibitions mounted in three locations: the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and the Caribbean Cultural Center, between 1997 and 1998. In 1997 her work was also included in another exhibition in the USA, Cross/ing: Time – Space – Movement , presented at the Contemporary Art Museum of the University of South Florida and organised in collaboration with the Museum of African American Art, Tampa, Fla. This exhibition explored themes of movement and relocation, both temporary and permanent, as central to contemporary art practice, showcasing African artists whose work transcends traditional boundaries of geography and race, while still inevitably reflecting their shared connection to Africa.

Alongside her art practice, Shoga has engaged in various other creative activities. In 1985, she produced the cover for the publication The Unbelonging by Joan Riley. In the late 1980s she was part of the radical but short-lived feminist magazine Women Live. Between 1992 and 2014, Shoga ran her private company, Picture This Moving Image, based at Spike Island in Bristol, which focused on video production, cultural education, and the arts. She also contributed to the animation of the 1995 cartoon Wolves, Witches and Giants. More recently, she was involved with In Between Time, a working-class, female-led live art producer based in Bristol and the South West, dedicated to creating a fairer world through creativity, social and environmental justice. As part of Emerging Futures Labs she began an online documentation project focused on trade and textiles. Throughout her career Shoga has received several awards, including the Arts Council bursary for Film and Video and a Television Film Award for her film Imperfect Window. In 2006, she was part of the Writing from Live Art focused on creative writing and the arts.

Folake Shoga lives and works in Bristol, England. In the UK public domain, her works are represented in the University of Arts London Collection and some of her documents are held in the Brixton Art Gallery Archive.

Related books

Roger Prager, 'CROSS/ING: Time, Space, Movement', Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, 1998, pp. 52-53
Olu Oguibe, Melissa Ho and Okwui Enwezor, Cross/ing: Time, Space, Movement (Santa Monica: Smart Art Press, 1998)
M. Franklin Sirmans ed., Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain 1966-1996 (New York: Caribbean Cultural Center, 1997)
Olu Oguibe, Seen/unseen, exh. cat (Liverpool: Bluecoat Gallery, 1994)
Folake Shoga: 'Like Something not Very Concrete' (Nottingham: Angel Row Gallery, 1994)
Joan Riley (with cover by Folake Shoga), The Unbelonging (London: The Women’s Press, 1985)

Public collections

Related organisations

Black Women in View (member)
Emerging Futures Labs (collaborator )
Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic (student )
Picture This Moving Image (director )
Women Live (collaborator )

Selected exhibitions

Transforming the Crown (group show), Caribbean Cultural Center/Studio Museum/Bronx Museum of the Arts , New York (1997-98)
Cross/ing: Time – Space – Movement (group show), Contemporary Art Museum/University of South Florida, Tamps (1997-98)
Seen/Unseen (group show), The Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool (1994)
Like Something Not Very Concrete (solo exhibition), Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham (1994)
Folake Shoga (exhibition by Indigo Alliance), Open Space, Reading, (1993)
Four X 4 (group show), The City Gallery, Leicester (1991)
Folake Shoga (exhibition of sculptures made for sale to raise funds for people in Africa), Biashara Cafe, Bristol (1990)
Tangled Roots (group show), Brixton Art Gallery, London (1986)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Folake Shoga]