Otobong Nkanga’s works variously examine ideas around land and the value connected to natural resources. Activities and performance permeate and motivate her photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, installation and video, though the various works are thematically connected through architecture and landscape. Nkanga reflects metonymically on the use and cultural value connected to natural resources, exploring how meaning and function are relative within cultures, and how an individual product might comprise multiple roles and histories, particularly within the context of the artist’s memory.

In 2014, Nkanga participated in 14 Rooms at the Fondation Beyeler, Art Basel and Theater Basel in Basel, Switzerland; the 8th Berlin Biennale in Berlin, Germany; and the symposium ‘Landings: Confrontation and Confession’ at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Presentations in 2013 include the Sharjah Biennial 11 in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates; and in 2012, Across the board: Politics of Representation, where Nkanga performed a proposal of her ongoing installation series Contained Measures in Tate Modern’s Tanks in London, UK.