Over the past 15 years, British-Nigerian artist Karimah Ashadu—recipient of the Venice Biennale’s 2024 Silver Lion—has forged a bold, formally inventive cinema that plunges viewers into the tactile realities of labor. Shooting on location in Lagos, Hamburg, and Nigeria’s Jos Plateau, Ashadu maps informal economies shaped by migration, global commerce, and colonial extraction, deliberately revealing her camera’s presence to unsettle the distance between viewer and subject. Her 2015 film King of Boys (Abattoir of Makoko) observes the raw operations of an open-air butcher shop through the crimson filter of a plastic beer keg, Brown Goods (2020) follows a Nigerian migrant navigating Hamburg’s secondhand export trade, and Plateau (2021–22) moves among undocumented tin miners carving out a living from a landscape scarred by colonial industry. Sensorially charged and keenly observed, these cinematic encounters underscore the uneasy friction between self-determination and systemic exploitation.

Followed by a conversation between Karimah Ashadu and Giampaolo Bianconi, Dittmer Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Presented in partnership with the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, in conjunction with Karimah Ashadu: Tendered (September 12–November 1, 2026) and the Art Institute of Chicago’s presentation of Karimah Ashadu: Machine Boys (opening September 11, 2026).

2015–22, Nigeria/Germany
In Berom and English with English subtitles
Format: Digital
ca. 50 min.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Karimah Ashadu is a British-born Nigerian artist and film director living and working between Hamburg and Lagos. Her work has been presented internationally at the Venice Biennale, Camden Art Centre, Canal Projects, MoMA PS1, Tate Modern, Secession, Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Museum of Modern Art, and other institutions. She received the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant at the 2024 Venice Biennale, as well as the 2025 Lichtwark-Förderpreis from the City of Hamburg, the 2022 Kunstpreis der Böttcherstraße, and the 2020 ars viva prize. Ashadu founded the production company Golddust by Ashadu in 2020, specializing in artists’ films engaging Black culture and African discourses. In 2026, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the Arts London.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE EDGE

Conversations at the Edge (CATE) is the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s award-winning series for groundbreaking film and media art. Now in its 25th year, CATE is presented through a unique partnership between SAIC’s Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation; Video Data Bank; and the Siskel Film Center.

TICKETS

Free for SAIC students*
$14 General admission
$9 Students, seniors (65+)
$8 SAIC faculty & staff / Art Institute staff*
$8 Siskel Film Center members
*Discounted tickets must be purchased in person with a valid ID.

ACCESSIBILITY

All CATE events include real-time captioning (CART). The Siskel Film Center is ADA accessible and equipped with hearing loops. For additional accessibility requests, visit saic.edu/access or contact cate@saic.edu.

Official Website

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Tags: Art Institute of Chicago, Artist Talk:, Brown Goods, CATE, Chicago, Conversations At The Edge, Documentary, experimental film, Film Screening, Gene Siskel Film Center, Hamburg, Informal Economies, Karimah Ashadu, King of Boys, labor, Nigeria, Plateau, SAIC