The Junkyard Museum of Awkward Things

Artist: Dil Humphrey-Umezulike aka Dilomprizulike
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Year of completion: 2010
Researcher:

The Junkyard Museum of Awkward Things is a project by Nigerian artist Dilomprizulike, aka The Junkman from Afrika.Made twice in Lagos, it was shown at Mostyn in 22 March - 16 October 2010. Junkman (named by the Independent as one of the 50 greatest cultural figures shaping the continent of Africa) spent three months in residence at Mostyn constructing the Junkyard Museum, with materials he found locally while working with children from local schools and groups. Presenting the un-presentable; valuing the worthless; appreciating the depreciated; taking the outcasts inside; embracing the untouchable: this is the Junkyard Museum of Awkward Things as described by its creator, the self-styled Junkman From Africa.

This unique ‘museum’ has been described as a ‘kind of artistic hospital’ in which the discarded object is resuscitated and brought back to a second life as art. As well as touching on ecological issues, the Junkyard Museum of Awkward Things is a reflection on people’s sense of rejection by and isolation in a consumer society which values disposability. The use of discarded materials has particular artistic resonance in Africa, and Dilomprizulike is among the most inventive of those who make their art out of the continent’s detritus.

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