Conversation Pieces

Dozie Kanu: I might wake up in the middle of the night. Walk into my studio, and just start playing with the orientation of the objects that exist in there. Flipping them on their head, turning them on their sides. I’m always trying to figure out how to change the way that you can see something that exists already.

My name is Dozie Kanu. I’m an artist from Houston, Texas, currently living in Portugal. Both parents are immigrants from Nigeria. When you think about African sculpture, these are all objects that perform very specific functions within all of these communities.

Stephen Burks: Design is a western concept — people in other places around the world have been making things for centuries. I’m Stephen Burks. We’d like to redefine what we consider to be design and who can participate in it. And so that’s maybe a lot to try to do with furniture [laughs] — you might think, but, but, you know, honestly, I think it’s important that, that we try.

Dozie Kanu: I try to make objects that can tell stories, perform practical, utilitarian functions, and also, I think, perform spiritually as well. This is a replica of an electric chair that exists somewhere in Florida. It’s a kind of another way of memorializing a corrupt system, a system that I’ve always managed to be cognizant about and try to figure out a way to not become a victim of.

Stephen Burks: As we continue to struggle for racial equity in this country, my identity cannot be separated from my work.

Dozie Kanu: There are times where I want to make an object that exists more on the end of being a design object. And there are times where I would like the work to exist more on the end of a sculptural object. But for the most part, I love the in-between. I love the difficulty of categorization, which I think kind of like, lends itself to the idea of Blackness, especially right now, where everyone expects Black people to address a lot of the same things. I just want to show the, the very particularity of, of my Black experience, if that makes sense.

There isn’t enough authentic representation of Black consciousness in the design world at the moment. I think this is why it’s so important for me to continue to be visible, so that there’s a following that comes after that, that takes it further.

Stephen Burks: It’s about opportunity, it’s about access.