D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem

About

D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem is a transnational Califor-Nigerian "space sculptor" whose award-winning teaching, art, and writing bridge modalities of ritual, design, ecology, and Afrofuturity.[1][2] Born and raised in rural Nigeria in Mkar, Benue State, she was inspired by her mother's adventurous spirit and humanitarian work, including efforts to eradicate polio in Nigeria and establish a national spinal cord injury association.[4] Duyst-Akpem's cross-disciplinary practice is rooted in art historical excavation and reclamation, expressed through photography, garment, synesthetic sculpture, digital experimentation, sonic intervention, and audience-interactive performance-activations honoring the poetics and sacred systems of African and Indigenous traditions.[1] Her projects consider the poetics of trace under the frame of Pastoral Brutalism, charting a sensual scholarly engagement with architectures and nature-based environments as a return to embrace the haptic role of shapeshifter, modes of healing and protection, fantasy excavation, and expanded forms of archive and memoir.[1] As founder of Denenge Design and In The Luscious Garden, she creates fantastical interactive environments and performances to interrogate, titillate, decolonize, and empower, inspired by Sun Ra and asking: "Who controls the future?"[2][3] She is an Associate Professor, Adjunct, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.[3]

Afrofuturism, Pastoral Brutalism, space sculpture, site-specific and interactive art bridging ritual, design, ecology, and decolonial practice