Arit Emmanuela Etukudo is a Nigerian-American artist working in self-portrait, moving image, installation, and performance. Her practice deals with the metamorphosis of Black identity and using the Black Radical Imagination as a tool of emancipation.
While at MacDowell, she filmed and edited her latest moving image installation piece, My Hands Were Too Calloused To Feel You Let Go, about the choice to let go of past pain and trauma without reconciliation. This piece is part of a series of works titled "I Once Was Held For 1,000 Years" that follows her metaphysical journey of self-retrieval. She worked on this project with the help of collaborator (costume designer/DP) Apechhya Gurung. Etukudo was recently awarded the Mozaik Philanthropy 2022 Future Art Award and will show this film installation in an exhibition at SPACES in Cleveland, Ohio this August.
