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Emeka Ogboh Quotes
born 1977 Nigeria
Emeka Ogboh (born May 14, 1977) is a Nigerian sound and installation artist best known for his soundscapes of life in Lagos. Trained as an artist, he began working with sounds that characterize cities following an Egyptian multimedia art program.
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14 quotes
As an artist, it's normal that one's place of domicile becomes the starting point of one's work.
If you have ever been to Lagos you will understand why sound is my preferred medium.
It is the unpredictability of Lagos which informs my work.
I find sound more engaging than any other medium.
A lot of my work has to do with migration or movement of people.
As Africans, we have our own narratives that are not necessarily documented.
When I relocated the soundscapes to my studio, I started hearing and feeling them as compositions, something that could be musical.
Sound Art is an African thing! We come from cities where sound is as important as the visual.
A lot of people would consider Lagos’ soundscape as being very noisy, and they’d call it noise. But I stopped calling it noise since I started listening to it.
When you record sounds out in the streets and bring them to your studio, it gives you room to be relaxed and listen to it – you are not right there in the action.
I didn’t actually set out to be a sound artist. Lagos made me a sound artist.
But when you kind of listen actively, intentionally, you hear more, you know.
In Lagos you can hear a hundred layers of sound happening at the same time, but you can count the sounds of Berlin on your fingers.
I’m not one of those artists that always has a clear vision of what I want. I like going with the flow because it’s going to naturally develop and lead me somewhere.