Ndidi Dike – Rare Earth Rare Justice
Solo exhibition, Main hall
In the exhibition Rare Earth Rare Justice, artist Ndidi Dike takes extraction of earth minerals and people as her starting point. A new sculptural work Deciphering Value II: Economic Anomalies and Unequal Dependencies in Global Commodity Trade is presented in an installation created uniquely for Färgfabriken’s main exhibition hall.
Rare Earth Rare Justice is the first presentation of Ndidi Dike’s artistic work in Sweden. In her practice, she works primarily as a sculptor and multidisciplinary artist. She often experiments with found objects, prints, spatial installations, and architectural interventions in the exhibition environment. Dike’s artistry is characterized by a deep engagement with contemporary socio-political and economic concerns, with a particular focus on how colonialism, post colonialism, and global capitalism have shaped contemporary urban cultures and landscapes.
As one of Nigeria’s most prominent artists, Dike explores themes such as the history of the enslaved, personal and collective archives, ecological devastation, and how global extractive industries lead to resource-driven conflicts, displacement, and human disasters.
Dike’s work is often preceded by long, research-based processes in which the choice of materials is guided by the specific theme of each project. Her art is characterized by a strong materiality – where the objects’ previous economic, social, and political lives carry symbolism, references, and concrete weight. By combining materials, images, and references from different cultural contexts, central to here practice is an engagement with Africa and it’s nations with a particular focus on the DRC, and other contested spaces, situated within complex discourses of post-colonial exploitation, global inequality, gender subordination, displacement and territorial conflict. Dike highlights historical events and intertwined narratives that still shape the present.
For Rare Earth Rare Justice, a publication including essays by curators Adelaide Bannerman and Osei Bonsu, a conversation with and a statement by the artist will be released.
Artist Statement: Deciphering Value II –
Economic Anomalies and Unequal Dependencies in Global Commodity Trade
Lagos, the megacity that never sleeps, is a site of relentless sensory and emotional stimulation. Frequently characterized as chaotic, the city’s markets and urban infrastructures reveal complex systems of improvisation, adaptation, and self-organization. Drawing upon notions of chaos as a generative condition rather than a state of disorder, this installation explores the latent structures, rhythms, and equilibria that emerge from seemingly fragmented realities.
The installation consists of suspended strips of transparent material arranged to form a cylindrical vitrine – a monumental architecture of extraction that recalls stolen histories enclosed at the core of modern civilisation. The exterior of the cylinder is inscribed with photo-collage imagery drawn from various Lagos markets, the skyline of London’s financial district, and Peckham – a vibrant, diversified urban community in South East London. Together, these fragments articulate the political dimensions of market aesthetics and illuminate the asymmetrical flows of goods, capital, and value that continue to shape contemporary economic relations.
The vitrine exceeds its conventional function as a display apparatus, becoming instead a critical instrument through which interconnected histories of extraction are made visible. These histories are not presented as discrete events but as mutually constitutive processes underpinning the formation of imperial modernity, industrial development, and institutional authority.
Deciphering Value II consequently functions as a critical metaphor for the mechanisms through which wealth, power, and knowledge have been accumulated, safeguarded, and legitimised. The convergence of geopolitical alliances, critical minerals, rare-earth resources, and looted cultural artefacts establishes a dialogue between histories of extraction and the ongoing dependencies of industrialised nations.
Ultimately, the circular vitrine operates as a forensic chamber, conceptually aligned with the autopsy neck-rest installation in Rare Earth, Rare Justice. The exhibition becomes a site of preservation, investigation, and critical reckoning. Deciphering Value II extends the broader inquiry of the Rare Earth, Rare Justice tricoloured topographical installation, tracing the enduring continuities of extraction, dispossession, and unequal exchange that continue to shape the contemporary world.
About the artist
Ndidi Dike, artist and cultural activist, was born in London and trained in painting at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria. Her work has been shown at many leading biennials and museums, including Biennale Jogja, Sonsbeek, Dak’Art, the Lagos Biennale, and the South London Gallery. In 2025, she participated in the Sharjah 16 Biennial. Dike’s art is included in several public and private collections worldwide including Tate Modern and Centre Pompidou.
Selected highlights of Solo and Group Exhibitions:
Vienna Secession (2026): A Solo Exhibit Rare Earth Rare Justice
Tate Modern (2026): featured in Nigerian Modernism: Art and Independence
60th Venice Biennale (2024): Nigeria Imaginary Pavillion
Tate Modern (2023): featured in A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography
Image above: Ndidi Dike, Blackhood A Living Archive, 2024 Photo: Marco Cappelleti Studio
Contact
Partners
The exhibition is developed in partnership with Secession in Vienna, Austria, where a first chapter will be presented from 6 March to 31 May 2026, curated by Jeanette Pacher. A new sculptural work is co-commissioned by the partners. In 2027 the exhibition opens again at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw.
