Last year I conducted a video interview with a Nigerian asylum seeker called Femi, who was living in a reception centre on Gardiner Street, Dublin. He had just received Humanitarian Leave to remain status.

Niger-ish is a continuation of this work, consisting of another video interview, shot in documentary style, with him, to see how his life has been going since. It will examine the asylum process on a more personal, individual level. This interview will incorporate the interview I conducted last year and will be shown in the Four Gallery from June 8 th until June 30 th.

Aims and Objectives of Niger-ish

The aim of this work is not to judge, classify, teach, cure, improve or even change anything in his life. The aim is to give a personal account of the asylum process in Ireland. The objective is that it opens up a space in which private, unidentified worlds can be researched, rethought and represented using the documentary style of the film as a tool for this to happen.

niger-ish will be opened by visual artist, jay koh

Jay Koh is an artist, curator and scholar. He was born in Singapore and since 1999 has been a German citizen. He is currently based in Dublin directing his 3 years cross community project Ni Hao – Dia Duit commissioned by CityArts and collaborating with various other groups in Ireland such as Shifting Ground and North-55. He takes on numerous director and adviser positions such as the ongoing 10 years project in Myanmar (Burma), an art and cultural programme (NICA – Networking + Initiatives for Culture and the Arts) in Yangon, the international organisation for cross-cultural projects, IFIMA - International Forum for InterMedia Arts, now based in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and networks such as the Intra Asia Network and FreeDimensional.

Jay takes on multifaceted roles in order to negotiate with social-political structures on site and conceives of appropriate actions in response to each site. These actions emerge from an artistic practice that can range from creating art works, curating and organising exhibitions, seminars, workshops and learning programmes; community capacity-building, advocacy, writing, publishing, to other necessary activities.

Some of his activities in 2006 were conducting the workshops and presentations:

The Multifaceted Curator in Jakartha and Bandung organised by ASEF and Goethe Institute with participants from Asean+3 and EU. http://www.goethe.de/ins/id/prj/mfc/enindex.htm

Articulating the Art Encounter: Art Criticism and Writing Workshop in the Singapore Art Museum

Visiting Artist Lecture Series of the University California San Diego

Collaborating with Arts Council of Mongolia to set up a resource development programme for culture and the arts in Ulaanbaatar. He begins his research doctoral studies as the first foreign candidate with the The Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki.

For details in CV and organisations, please see http://www.ifima.net/IFIMA/personal/jaybio.htm