This is a Temporary website for The Ens Project an ongoing multipartite work of art by Nigerian born London based artist Leo Asemota.

Asemota has been evolving The Ens Project since spring 2005. The Project’s formative and creative impetus are ancient and contemporary Nigeria’s Edo peoples of Benin’s rich tradition of art and ceremony and their annual Igue rite to the Head; Victorian Britain’s history of invention, exploration and conquest in which the sacking and looting of the former Kingdom of Benin is of particular interest; and the essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by the German cultural theorist Walter Benjamin.

This Temporary website presents an overview of the Project’s phases, its history, list of works and an ens cyclopædia of related subject matter.

Count Off for Eo ipso

(2012)

Performed in the Tanks at Tate Modern, Count Off for Eo ipso establishes Phase 3 in The Ens Project.

Invoking the Project’s 7-year history and Tate Gallery’s conversion of Bankside power station’s subterranean oil tanks, the multi-site performance which included the forecourt at St. Paul’s Cathedral as well as the Millennium Bridge, enacted 14 alternate cycles in the transfiguration of The Handmaiden who makes an appearance using the architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who designed the former power station, as an avatar.

© Leo Asemota / EoTLA   All Rights Reserved         

Count Off for Eo ipso: Doctrine of Reminiscence

2012
Media: HD video; colour and sound, ink on washi paper, hand-twisted wool thread, pressed hibiscus flower in artist’s frame, cast palm oil, orhue (kaolin), cast iron, cast brass, coal and coral beads.

Dimensions variable

Sash of Fulfilment

(2013)

Sash of Fulfilment was a parade at the British Museum by characters from the performances ens memoralis, The longMarch of Displacement and Count Off for Eo ipso. 

Staged to mark the completion of their involvement in The Ens Project, the 10 characters were draped in a grey double satin sash with graphite on paper drawings of suits for various stages in the Project.

Sash of Fulfilment: The Suits

2013

Media: 10 grey double satin sashes, 10 black glass headed pins, 10 white glass headed pins, 10 kilt pins with black cording, white cording and graphite drawings on paper, 3 medals with ribbons, 3 red, white and blue cording.

Dimensions variable

The Intrinsic Tendency of The Ens Sign

(2019)

“Look For Me All Around You” curated by Claire Tancons

Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving The Echo Chamber

A multimedia installation comprised of drawings, photographs and sculptures and eventually a video work. Evolving over the duration of the biennial, the ‘live’ artwork began with drawings and sculptures presented on pedestals reminiscent of the richly embellished carved wooden ‘agba’ ceremonial stools of the Edo peoples from the Kingdom of Benin.

The Intrinsic Tendency of The Ens Sign later became known as Of Skill At The Oath following a live art work a month later by The Handmaiden, this time, using as an avatar, the standing figure at forefront in a nineteenth century drawing of an ensemble called the Tumburah Orchestra.

Installation view

constellatio praeteritus née Connotations

2019

Media: Twenty-eight orhue (kaolin chalk) forms on twenty-eight ‘agba’ style tall stools

Dimensions: 36.8 x 43.1 x 111.7 cm x 28