Sponsored and presented by the Wallenberg Medal and Lecture, the African Studies Center, and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies.
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Let the Earth Breathe: Photo Exhibition and Poetry Reading
by Nnimmo Bassey, 2024 Wallenberg Medalist, Architect, Poet, and African Environmental Activist; and Omolade Adunbi, African Studies Center Director
Monday, September 9, 2024 | 3:30 - 6 PM

Photo Exhibition: People Crossings and the Dangers of Oil Pollution -
Opening Reception: 3:30 PM (Light refreshments served)
Department of Afroamerican and African Studies GalleryDAAS, Haven Hall, Ground Floor, Room G648, 505 S State St.
Exhibition Dates: September 9 - October 11
3:30 PM: Welcome and introductions, DAAS Chair Bénédicte Boisseron
3:40 PM: Exhibit introduction, ASC Director Omolade Adunbi
3:45 PM: Remarks, Nnimmo Bassey, Wallenberg Medal recipient
4:00 PM: Walk from DAAS Gallery to II Gallery

Photo Exhibition: Living, Community, and Polluted Environment
Opening Reception: 4:15 PM
International Institute Gallery, Weiser Hall, 5th Floor, Room 547, 500 Church St.
Exhibition Dates: September 9 - 27

Poetry Reading
5 - 6 PM, 1010 Weiser Hall, 10th Floor, 500 Church St.
Light refreshments served

Opening by Omolade Adunbi, ASC Director

Poetry Reading by Diepreye Amanah
May I Not Return the Same Way I Came
Remember (poem by Joy Harjo)

Introduction of the featured speaker Nnimmo Bassey by Omolade Adunbi

Poetry Reading by Nnimmo Bassey
Mother Earth Our Teacher
Choked by Convenience
I came from the Future
We thought it was oil … but it Was blood

Closing by Bénédicte Boisseron
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About the Photo Exhibition:

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria has been described as one of the most polluted spaces in the entire world. For over 60 years, the region has been host to the activities of multinational oil corporations who partner with the Nigerian state in exploiting oil for profit. Oil was first discovered in the region in 1956, and the first shipment of the commodity to the international market occurred in 1958 with a consignment of about 5,000 barrels per day (bpd). Production peaked at about 2.5 million bpd, but today, because of community protests, insurgency, and general disruption to the activities of corporations, the number hovers between 1.2 million to 1.4 million bpd. While the state has benefited immensely from oil production, the same cannot be said of the communities that are hosts to pipelines, flow stations, and all of the oil infrastructure that has come to define the entire region. Loss of livelihood, heavily polluted environment, death, and displacement have characterized the region’s interaction with multinational oil corporations such as Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Eni, Total Energies, etc.

This exhibition is a bold attempt to shed light on what it means to live in an oil extractive enclave like the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The images showcase the lives lived, the loss, perseverance, and determination to survive.

The exhibition is divided into two parts. The first part of the exhibition is displayed in the DAAS gallery with the sub-theme “People Crossings and the Dangers of Oil Pollution” and is a demonstration of the everyday lived experiences of the inhabitants of many of the enclaves of the Niger Delta. As depicted in the photos, people cross polluted rivers to go to school and in search of a means of survival.

Gallery visitors are invited to cross from the DAAS Gallery to the International Institute Gallery on the 5th floor of Weiser Hall to see the second part of the exhibition, “Living, Community, and Polluted Environment.” This portion of the exhibition demonstrates community resilience in the face of environmental persecution. It shows everyday life amid oil infrastructure that litters the entire landscape of many of the communities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

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Nnimmo Bassey is an architect, environmental justice activist, writer, and poet. His latest poetry collection is titled I See the Invisible (2023). Other collections include I Will Not Dance to Your Beat(2011) and We Thought It Was Oil But It Was Blood (2002). He is director of the ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF).

Omolade Adunbi is a professor of Anthropology, Afroamerican and African Studies and Law at the University of Michigan. His research examines the dynamics of power, natural resource extractive practices, governance, human and environmental rights, culture, transnational institutions, multinational corporations, and the postcolonial state. His latest book, Enclaves of Exception: Special Economic Zones and Extractive Practices in Nigeria (Indiana University Press,2022), offers a new approach to exploring the relationship between oil and technologies of extraction and their interrelatedness to China’s interest in free trade zones and its impact on local livelihoods and environmental practices.

Diepreye Amanah is a Nigerian-American poet from Charlotte, North Carolina. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan and is an assistant editor for the Michigan Quarterly Review. Winner of a 2022 and a 2023 Academy of American Poets Prize, and the second-runner-up in the 2023 American Literary Review Poetry Contest, her poems also appear or are forthcoming in Epoch, The Adroit Journal, Up the Staircase Quarterly, The Rising Phoenix Review, and elsewhere. Amanah is longlisted in the 2023 National Poetry Competition.


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These events are hosted in conjunction with the 2024 Wallenberg Medal and Lecture featuring Nnimmo Bassey
Tuesday, September 10 at 4:30 PM | Robertson Auditorium, Ross School of Business
Visit https://wallenberg.umich.edu for more information.

Nnimmo Bassey’s photos courtesy of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF).


If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact levyra@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.