Hannah Uzor

Hannah Uzor is a Zambian artist whose work is rooted her interest and research into both African and diasporic cultural history and how those histories are recalled and transmitted in personal and public memory. Her research-lead practice draws on her own family history as well as histories from the diaspora to make paintings and works on paper that are poetic and richly allusive.

Uzor uses archival images, historical paintings, family photographs and literature to create works that reflect on the complexities of cultural hybridity and the ways in which personal and collective histories shape our sense of self.  Her work invites dialogue about the intersections of tradition and modernity, while also addressing the legacy of colonialism and its ongoing impact on identity. Through her distinctive approach, Uzor is contributing to contemporary conversations about race, feminism, and the complexities of navigating multiple identities in the globalized world.

For her debut solo show at Niru Ratnam in Spring 2024, Uzor focused on how knowledge is transmitted through generations who have migrated from their homeland, and how memories are conveyed in the absence of archives and conventional historical record. The interplay between tangible mementoes of the past, half-remembered stories and missing pieces of information that have to be re-imagined give rise to a sense of ambiguity in these works, suggesting a delicate process of collective remembering that is always under the threat of erasure.