Judah Iyunade is a Nigerian-born lens-based artist based in Winnipeg, Canada. He uses photography, film and performance to explore themes of history, memory and identity, with a focus on the African diasporic experience. In 2020, he was recognised as a PLATFORM Photography Award winner.
Madison Beale: Hi, Iyuna, welcome to the Artalogue blog.
Iyuna: Hello! Thanks for inviting me.
MB: When did you know that you wanted to be an artist?
I: I'd say I was thinking more about arts and my practice from, I'd say, 2018.
MB: Was there a moment in your childhood that you decided that you had become an artist?
I: No, I never really thought I would be an artist as a kid. I was introduced to literature through my parents and my siblings. My parents are in academia, so it was a requirement to read, it was very important to read books. I guess the journey sort of started from there. But I never really thought about being an artist. Then, in 2018, I was doing research about photography and that set me on a path to move away from commercial photography to more of an art practice of photography and film.
MB: How would you describe your practice?
I: I'd say my practice is a bit broad. It's an exploration of some of the things that I'm interested in: philosophy, life, human connections. I engage with the world and our understanding of history itself. I believe history collapses into smaller histories.A lot of things are forgotten and I feel like in my practice I like to go back to this.
MB: Can you tell me what smaller histories mean to you?
I: I would say smaller issues. They're very important in the sense that they are absorbed into a bigger narrative, and I think it is important to keep them alive in some way and use them as references in my work. When they're being referenced, they challenge our preconceived notions about different things. So, a lot of things that would be considered irrelevant shape the bigger narrative and culture.
Image form the Bond series (2019) by Iyuna.
View the full series here.
MB: Can you tell me a bit about your time in Nigeria, and how that influences your practice today?
I: I would say it's a big influence in my practice because that's where I'm from. That's where I was born. My formative years were spent there. My parents also immersed us into a lot of culture and a lot of things about ourselves. They spent a great deal of time trying to educate us about where we're from and connecting us to this. When I moved here, I wanted to make work that references some of those memories, and do my own independent research about some of the things that I learned growing up and seeing how they fit into the bigger narrative.
MB: Your work deals a lot with the diaspora. I'm curious as to what the diaspora means to you, and how it manifests in your practice.
I: That's quite important. I wouldn't really consider myself a Nigerian artist because I don't live the daily experience of being Nigerian and living and working in Nigeria. I'm influenced by the culture and the history of image making in this part of the country and also from back home. In my work, there is a crossover between what existed there and prairie images. I'm doing something a bit different because of my influences.
MB: You studied film, how does that impact the films that you make today?
I: I was already working with moving images before I decided to study film. I was more interested in studying theatre, which I did. I was interested in the idea of artifice and creating an illusion of reality. When I went into the program I was already making films, but studying film introduced me to this wide idea of what the medium can be.
I was first interested in early forms of cinema. And I also was interested in different forms of the medium itself. It really informed my work because it gave me a lot to research and think about. Studying defined my style.
MB: What were you interested in putting on screen in your earlier films?
I: My earliest films were about identity. There is sort of like this continuation of the tableaus I was making - photographic tableaus - and making those into moving images. It was a new way, a sort of extension of the photographic work I was doing.
MB: What is it about a lens-based practice that you gravitate towards? Why do you find that to be the most appropriate way to express yourself?
I: Those were the only accessible medium for me. I couldn't paint and it wasn't of interest to me. I think images are of interest to me, because where I'm from we make a point of documenting, which is really important, since it's a way to show that you existed at a particular time. It's a way of making history, you know.
My parents collected a lot of images, so I was already exposed to the medium as a kid. It was quite easy to just do it. My siblings basically forced me to get into photography.
MB: Who are some artists and filmmakers that inspire your work?
I: I think there are too many to mention. Samuel Fosso, for sure. I really like his work. For film, Ousmane Sembène is an African director. I like some films he made from the seventies to the nineties. African cinema interests me in general. World cinema, non-English films. I'm more interested in what's around the non-English world in film.
MB: What have been some of your favourite projects to work on?
Iyuna: I made a film last summer, it was really good. It was a feature film. That was really nice to make. That is probably my most challenging one, but it's also the most exciting one. I would also say my self portrait series, Alara. I've been working on portraits since 2019 and had the first exhibition for the work in 2024 at the Centre for Cultural and Artistic Practices. C’CAP. It's also part of a show at Dunlop Gallery, the Black Prairies show. It was very interesting to work on self-portraits. I was also exploring family history also exploring the history of this masquerading practice. Honestly, it was really fun to work with myself and make a film. It’s in distribution right now with the Winnipeg Film Group and Video Pool Media Art Center.
Madison Beale: Can you tell me about the film How to Interpret the Masquerade?
iyuna: The film is an experimental film. It's about 7 minutes long. There are some elements of performance in the film because I'm performing for the camera on a stage that was built for the film. And in the other half of the film there is an interview with this chief, who talks about the importance of this particular masquerade. I sort of have a mask on in the film. It is basically explaining how this practice existed, and how colonialism disrupted the practice and the ceremony.
Still from How to Interpret the Masquerade (2024) by Iyuna.
If you would like to learn about Iyunade’s 2024 exhibition, Alara, Luther Konadu (the show’s curator) wrote a fantastic essay that delves into the masquerade practice and the significance of Iyunade’s work on the matter.
MB: Can you tell me a bit about your curatorial practice?
I: It started accidentally. It wasn't something I was actively looking into, but it just sort of happened. It’s complex. You always don't have one idea for everything. I've worked with some organizations to create new work and new installations. I've also done film programming. Sometimes I work with Send and Receive for the installations of the festival and we always try to prioritize experimental sound art. There's a lot of things like that in the city. And my job really is just to go out and identify the possible performances or even installations sometimes. We've worked with some local and international artists.
MB: What can you tell me about your upcoming show at Ace Art this Saturday?
I: The exhibition, Enacting Echoes, is my exploration of image making as a as a practice itself. I'm also sort of trying to study this complex interplay of fiction and nonfiction in photography, and how we sort of represent these ideas. I’ve been working on this project for 2, almost 3 years now. I'm interested in the process of image making. The difference between taking photos, making photos and the process of making photos from existing photos.
The process behind the exhibition was me just going out to take a lot of tableaus of my friends. Usually in conversation or in, sometimes, tense situations.
MB: What are your goals for the next stage of your career?
I: To make more work. To make more films. I feel like I need to make more films. I'm just a very slow filmmaker, which I think it's good. I like to take my time working on things. When I make films, I make them as silent films, and then I construct the sound differently. It’s a long process. I need to be 100% sure of the image before I move on to the sound.
I have a lot of ideas to make films and also to work with other people to make films. They don't necessarily have to be my films. Just exploring the possibility of the medium. And there's always something new to discover or to try. I'm not even 10 years into my practice. So I think there's a lot to learn from and space to grow as well as learn from other people. I think the future is really exciting.
MB: What advice would you give someone looking to become an artist?
I: I think, to become an artist, it requires a lot of sacrifice. It requires a lot of research. It also requires the person's conviction to pursue this career. Convictions to follow a particular practice and a particular tradition of making art, you know. Once you have that conviction, try learn from other people and be open to critique. When you're in art school, you're exposed to a lot of things, you make a lot of friends. They're either above you or at the same level and you can learn from them. You also learn from yourself. You're in an environment to basically be moulded into an artist. But if you're not in art school, I think you would benefit from a community of artists to learn from and work with.
THIS INTERVIEW WAS EDITED FOR BREVITY.
VIEW IYUNA'S LATEST BODY OF WORK, ENACTING ECHOES, AT ACE ART INC FROM MARCH 22-MAY 2 2025.