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Sokari Douglas Camp CBE

Born, 1958 in Buguma, Nigeria

From a feature on Sokari Douglas Camp, “All That Glitters Is Not What It Seems: A Conversation with Sokari Douglas Camp”, by Robert Preece. The piece appeared in Sculpture magazine, April 2016, Vol. 35 No. 3: 46-51. “Born in the Niger Delta, Sokari Douglas Camp is well aware of the harmful effects of environmental pollution in the region. She has made this subject her primary focus, combining it with other challenging issues related to Nigeria and the broader world in works made with her preferred material – steel.

Over the course of four decades, Douglas Camp has had more than 40 solo shows worldwide, at venues including the National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC, (1999) and the Museum of Mankind (a former branch of the British Museum in London (1995). She has also represented Britain and Nigeria in national exhibitions. In 2003, she was short-listed for London’s Fourth plinth, and in 2005, she was awarded a CBE in recognition of her services to art. In 2012, she exhibited All the world is now richer, a memorial commemorating the abolition of slavery, in the House of Commons at the British Parliament; it was also shown at St Paul’s Cathedral in 2014. She received degrees from the Royal College of Art and Central School of Art and Design, both in London, where she lives and works.”

Douglas Camp’s work was included in the From Two Worlds exhibition at Whitechapel Art Gallery, 30 July - 7 September 1986.

She contributed work to the major exhibition Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body, which was curated by Barbara Thompson, curator of African, Oceanic, and Native American Collections at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. The exhibition was originated by Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire and exhibited there April 1 - August 10, 2008 before touring to venues in Wellesley, Massachusetts and San Diego, California. Sokari Douglas Camp’s work was reproduced in the substantial catalogue accompanying the exhibition.

The exhibition also featured contributions by the following artists: Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Renée Cox, Angéle Etoundi Essamba, Lalla Assia Essaydi, Emile Guebehi, Senzeni Marasela, Nandipha Mntambo, Zanele Muholi, Hassan Musa, Wangechi Mutu, Ingrid Mwangi/Robert Hutter - IngridMwangiRobertHutter Collective, Magdalene Odundo, Etiyé Dimma Poulsen, Alison Saar, Joyce J. Scott, Berni Searle, Fazal Sheikh, Malick Sidibé, Penny Siopsis, Maud Sulter, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, and Carla Williams.