00:00Thousands of clay elements that make up one piece of art, these are the creations of Ngozi
00:05Omeje Ezema in Munich's Pinakothek de Modena.
00:09The ceramic artist hails from Nigeria.
00:11Why do her vases look as if they had shattered to tiny bits in transport?
00:16This size of work, you would imagine how frightening to ship them from Nigeria to this place if
00:24they are just one solid wall.
00:28When Ngozi Omeje Ezema first began working with ceramics, she did in fact turn out massive
00:33clay vessels.
00:34But they are limited by their sheer size, and so she felt limited in her creativity.
00:41I once fired, though I wasn't patient enough.
00:43I wanted to finish quickly so I didn't allow the work to dry properly.
00:48The body broke, so you see that kind of experience.
00:53She had that kind of experience more than once.
00:56But with the myriad of tiny terracotta elements, that can't happen.
01:01But unpacking and hanging them up does have its pitfalls too.
01:05It took the artist a week of working at dizzying heights to get her boundless vases into the
01:10proper shape.
01:11Boundless vases, to me, is a way of expanding the boundaries of ceramics, and a way of breaking
01:21free as a woman.
01:23We possess enormous potentials that shouldn't be limited by what we are expected to do.
01:30We can climb to the highest.
01:31As a little girl, she modeled shapes in wet sand.
01:36There was no clay in her East Nigerian village.
01:39Her sister supported her ambition to study art.
01:42At the University of Nigeria in Nsuka, she finally got an opportunity to work with clay.
01:47Now she teaches there.
01:49In her studio close to campus, she sketches the designs and makes the individual clay leaves.
01:53The medium I'm using is a fire clay, and it's high-temperature clay, less impurity.
02:00The leaves were rigid.
02:04This one with hands, it gives it different forms.
02:07They are never the same.
02:09It's painstaking work.
02:11It took a month for her to finish one big vase.
02:14As a mother of four children, she can't do it alone.
02:18She's hired helpers.
02:21Her kids also like to come to the studio and help out.
02:24What's left for the artist to do herself?
02:27And then the installation, I have to wait on my own.
02:35Ngozi Omeje Ezema's original technique has brought her success at biennales in Africa and
02:42East Asia.
02:43Her themes come from her own cultural background, but they're universal nonetheless.
02:49The elephant, for instance, turns up again and again.
02:52Her father was nicknamed Elephant.
02:55He died in 2013.
02:57She's still trying to come to terms with it.
02:59You know, the strings gives life to the elephant.
03:03The idea was to allow the audience to create with me by cutting down the strings.
03:10So, but if I allow others to cut this down and be able to bear it, then I'll be able to bear the passing of my father.
03:15Back to the vases.
03:18The Munich exhibition is her first in Germany.
03:21For the curator, too, the solo presentation of an African artist is a first.
03:27Her approach is highly unusual.
03:34I don't have anything to compare it with.
03:36In a way, she's coming from the tradition of her country, this African approach, but still very different.
03:43Completely modern.
03:44And that's why we see her at the vanguard of contemporary artists.
03:51Ngozi Omeje Ezema has made the big leap to Europe, a cause for celebration.
04:02Her art is also a plea to adopt a new contemporary view of Africa.
04:06Seeing this as an opportunity also to get to outer world, apart from Africa, it is also to create an awareness that African art is not necessarily just the port.
04:22It's not just smaller port or smaller vessels.
04:26It seems to predetermine what can only come from Africa.
04:30Her floating vases are a direct assault on the cliché of African ceramics.
04:45It recalls anything from beehives to swarms of leaves.
04:50But then I heard that it's clay.
04:52That's very impressive.
04:55I think it's sensational.
04:57It complements the space very nicely, and I think it's great to see an African artist here.
05:03It's amazing.
05:04Just how the scale of the works comes across in this space.
05:07It's really a great new idea that we haven't seen before.
05:15Ngozi Omeje Ezema hasn't reached her own creative limits by any stretch.
05:20She's dreaming of a vase that fills an entire room.
05:23She may soon be able to make that dream a reality.
05:27nothing of scotch-like animation.
05:29Everything here does not feel none other than.
05:33I'm very excited.
05:34I love you.
05:37It's fun with my unique menteSea.
05:39I'm verymod hot.
05:40Look at my own Zenita from 1949.
05:41Gundogan.
05:44I'm very excited to say my intention of working against ambition.
05:46So that, yes, from an impulsive害 family.
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