A podcast & transdisciplinary platform
Conversation as an artistic method.
NKATA is a listening archive conceived by Emeka Okereke, gathering sound, writing, image, video, installation, and archival practice across Nigeria and Germany. It is a long-form artistic project that employs the emotive power of voice, and the performative attributes of conversation in the collation, arrangement and transmission of embodied knowledge through the act of listening.
- Nkata / Igbo
- Conversation
- Based
- Nigeria + Germany
- Forms
- Sound, writing, image, video, installation
The project
What is Nkata?
Nkata is an Igbo word for conversation. Here, conversation is not treated simply as an interview format or a finished record. It is a way of staying with a person, a practice, and the histories moving through both.
Each encounter begins with the life and work of an artist or cultural practitioner, then follows the themes, positions, and ideologies their practice opens. The aim is depth without distance: conversations that remain rigorous, accessible, and alive to the present.
How the archive moves
From encounter to relation.
Encounter
Begin with a person, a practice, and the conditions from which the work emerges.
Relation
Let language, memory, place, identity, and form connect one conversation to another.
Return
Keep each encounter open to new readings through themes, time, and curatorial paths.
Artist & host
Emeka Okereke
A Nigerian visual artist and writer working between Lagos and Berlin.
Okereke's practice moves across photography, video, poetry, performance, pedagogy, and project organising, with borders and their lived consequences as a recurring concern.
He is the founder and artistic director of Invisible Borders Trans-African Project, an artist-led initiative using travel, encounter, and collaborative practice to address the gaps and misconceptions produced by borders across the African continent.
His work has been presented internationally, including at the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2018, he was appointed Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France's Ministry of Culture.