The Free Artist? 

If I had known that being a women would be about balance  

I would have changed into the lilies of the valley 

Had I known that I had to fight for my freedom 

I would have chosen the universe as my home 

Had I known that creativity is a currency 

I would have become a bird of prey 

Freedom to exist  

Freedom to be and not to be  

I am the person that you see in the office 

The one who cleans your public toilets 

The chef in your restaurant  

The caregiver to your mother or grandmother 

The truck driver and bin collector 

I am on the cusp  

The breadline of existence 

I am the wheel of fortune; turning, seeking to land on the goldmine 

I am a free and a lancer between the norm and the abnormality 

The line on the inside and outside. 

The coupe de foudre 

The eclipse of your imagination. 

Analysing the phenomena of freedom, there is a realisation of practice. The practice of staying alive and staying alive to practice. Caught in the mouth of the predator, the quest to freedom remains liminal.  

Creating boundaries…. 

I am the author of this boundary, the policy maker and the strategic enforcer but I am not the reality. In between spaces, I am seeking for a comfort that my creativity continuous to breakdown. 

Seeking to politicize the rigor of creativity, I destroy my own foundation to allow creativity to rebuild itself. 

PAUSE………… 

I am a freelancer.  

Chinasa Vivian Ezugha 

Chinasa Vivian Ezugha, Winner of the NAE Open Main Prize 2019, Ezugha is a Nigerian-born artist living and working in Hampshire. Her work looks at the transition of Black women and their identity within culture from colonised subjects to emancipated figures. Vivian works predominantly in performance, using the medium to decontextualise and reconstruct what it means to be alive in this present time and protest for a world where dreams are equal. she is the founder of ‘Live Art in Wymondham’, a one-day site-specific event that aimed to bring emerging artists working in live art to rural Norfolk. Ezugha’s work has been presented in venues across Europe, America and the UK; to include In Between Time Festival as part of the New Bloods Commission, SPILL festival and Rapid Pulse International Performance Art festival.