Listening to the Echoes of the South Atlantic Listening to the Echoes of the South Atlantic | Page 27

Nyugen E. Smith is equally committed to raising consciousness about past and
present political struggles. He works in an impressively wide range of mediums
including painting, works on paper, sculpture, installation, video, performance, and
poetry, which inspires me to describe him as a postcolonial renaissance man. Deeply
inspired by his Trinidadian and Haitian heritage, his work is influenced by the
conflation of African cultural practices and the remnants of European colonial rule
in the region. His artistic response is to challenge and question imperialist practices
of oppression and violence.  Each work conveys an anticolonial history lesson,
highlighting entire chapters that have been left out of the conversation, thereby
challenging and destabilizing Western-centric narratives. He consistently questions
where history and fiction intersect while also emphasizing how history continues to
affect the present, most evident in relation to the politics of race.
Smith’s deep connection to his ancestral roots permeates his entire practice and is
particularly evident in his performances. For his participation in The Sea is History,
he engaged the audience in a performance that captured the poetic justice of him
occupying and taking control of a European space. The stench of colonialism hung
heavily in the air. Before he even entered the room, his presence was forcefully
announced by the pungent smell of Norwegian dried cod. As a result of the triangular
trade (which Norway was directly involved in), the taste for Norwegian dried cod,
typically used to prepare bacalao, spread throughout the Atlantic and is still prevalent
in Mediterranean, West African, Caribbean and Brazilian cuisine. Walking slowly
and rhythmically through the museum, dressed in a long, timeless robe, his steps
were punctuated by the ringing of a hand-held bell. As soon as the audience had
gathered around him, he summoned witnesses, through intense gestures and gazes,
to join him for a swig of Norwegian cod liver oil. These days, most Norwegians are
accustomed to taking cod liver oil in pill form and the distant memory of having to
take it in liquid form is not a good one. He must have had help from the spiritual
realm to get so many people to drink from that flask. One couldn’t help but feel a
strong sense that Smith’s ancestors really were right there with us. In this case, his
command of a hand-held bell was seemingly all it took to invoke ancestral spirits into
the space.
Nyugen E. Smith
Bundlehouse: FS Mini No.1 (2019)
Mixed media and found object sculpture 
Around 2005 Nyugen E. Smith coined a term for what has since become his
signature series, Bundlehouse. The importance of these paintings, works on paper,
and sculptures helps shed light on his practice as a whole and the deep connection