Åndas

With Åndas, Ogboh has created a conceptual intervention into Austria’s cultural self-image as part of the Salzkammergut 2024 project. The beer Åndas, brewed with local Austrian ingredients and infused with West African flavours, stands as a metaphor for the permeability of cultural boundaries. The accompanying advertising campaign, featuring Black Austrians in traditional Salzkammergut attire, subtly yet powerfully challenges national identity constructs​.

His new works extend the interactive principle of “ÅNDAS – GLEICH”, emphasizing materiality, corporeality, and language. A key element of these sculptures is the integration of textual forms from African and European cultures, which coexist without merging or altering each other. Particularly striking is the use of Nsibidi script, a traditional symbol system of the Igbo people and other West African ethnic groups. As a centuries-old non-linear writing system, Nsibidi uses ideographic signs to convey fundamental concepts such as community, power, and identity.

By juxtaposing the Nsibidi symbol for ‚growth‘ with the European letter Å, which signifies ‚otherness,‘ Ogboh generates a visual tension—one that does not seek resolution but instead underscores the dynamic interplay and coexistence of distinct cultural systems. His sculptures thus become vehicles of a discursive space where neither assimilation nor hierarchy prevails, but rather a state of equitable coexistence emerges.

These objects are not merely material manifestations but performative markers of social discourse. They embody a central tenet of Ogboh’s artistic practice—the coexistence of multiple cultural expressions, equally valid and simultaneously present, without one seeking dominance over the other.