Karimah Ashadu - Tendered

Published on the occasion of the Karimah Ashadu exhibition Tendered at Camden Art Centre, 10 October 2025/22 March 2026. Ashadu's practice looks at the contemporary manifestations of Nigerian history as they are borne by its people and landscape. Having grown up between the United Kingdom and Nigeria, the artist situates her point of view within a constant negotiation of distance, one that pertains to diasporic existences. It is through a sympathetic proximity - as opposed to a documentary approach - that Ashadu observes the struggles, and gathers the stories, of working men - from the motorcycle taxi riders in Machine Boys (2024) to the tin miners in Plateau (2022) or the palm oil farmers in Red Gold (2016). Her background in painting carries through to the visual language of her films, combining a strong sense of colour, composition and form, with the fugitive kinetics of her camera lens. This unique approach to the handling of the camera, and the framing of its gaze, defies the tendency towards spectacle in colonial ethnographic documentation. Ashadu's nuanced and intimate portraits, whether of individuals or communities, probe multifaceted reflections onto the notions of masculinity and patriarchal systems within the cultural context of West Africa, as they are inextricably related to the conditions of economic independence and exploitation in the aftermath of British colonial rule.