Zina Saro-Wiwa

Formerly a BBC journalist, her artistic practice emerged from her interest in changing the way the world sees Africa, using film, art, and food. Her practice includes New West African Kitchen, a project where Saro-Wiwa re-imagines West African cuisine, each feast also featuring African video art presentations and a mini-lecture. On 22 March 2011, Saro-Wiwa was named as one of the top 25 leaders of the African Renaissance in The Times newspaper. In 2017, an article published on Norient highlighted that Saro-Wiwa's use of dubbing alt-Nollywood movies "subverts narrative, stylistic and visual conventions of the Nigerian cinema".

Zina Saro-Wiwa studied at University of Bristol and Roedean School. The recorded working language is English. Places of work recorded in the authority are London and Brooklyn. Residence is recorded at Port Harcourt. Employment is recorded with artist. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship.

• Born — 1976 • Birthplace — Port Harcourt, Nigeria • Citizenship — Nigerian, British • Education — University of Bristol • Occupation — * Filmmaker • video artist • Years Active — 2008–present • Relatives — * Noo Saro-Wiwa (twin sister) • Ken Wiwa (brother) • Ken Saro-Wiwa (father) • Website — zinasarowiwa.com

Zina Saro-Wiwa was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, to Ken and Maria Saro-Wiwa. Her late father, the author and poet Ken Saro-Wiwa, became a well-known Nigerian environmental and human rights activist. He was executed in 1995 by the military regime in Nigeria when she was 19. She grew up in Surrey and Sussex in the UK, where Saro-Wiwa's wife Maria and five children lived. She attended the private girls' school, Roedean, in Sussex, and the University of Bristol, where she studied economic and social history. Her twin sister is the travel writer Noo Saro-Wiwa, author of Looking For Transwonderland (published by Granta). Her older brother, Ken Wiwa, is the author of a memoir called In the Shadow of a Saint (published by Random House/Vintage).

Saro-Wiwa was a BBC reporter, researcher, presenter and producer. She worked freelance all over the network on BBC Radio 4, Radio 3, World Service Radio and BBC2. At the age of 20, she began contributing reports to BBC Radio 4's All in the Mind and In Living Colour programmes. She went on to work on a variety of BBC Radio 4 programmes including You & Yours, Woman's Hour, Home Truths, The Long View and also World Service arts programme, The Ticket. She has presented four Radio series: A Samba For Saro-Wiwa, a two-part Radio 4 series in which she recounted her experiences in Bahia, Brazil; Water Works, a five-part series looking at water provision in the third world; Faith & Fashion, a two-part series on the intersection between high fashion and religion for the World Service, and Hello World, also for The World Service, where she explored Brazilian, Indian, Nigerian and British culture through the filter of their celebrity magazines. From 2004 to 2008, Saro-Wiwa was one of the presenters for BBC Two's flagship arts magazine programme The Culture Show. In August 2008, she co-presented three BBC programmes (The Edinburgh Show) that covered the Edinburgh festival, alongside historian and BBC broadcaster Matthew Sweet. In 2008, Saro-Wiwa interviewed Nigerian author Chinua Achebe at his home. On 5 June 2008, BBC Radio 4 aired the resulting half-hour programme about Achebe and his seminal novel Things Fall Apart on the 50th anniversary of the book's publication.

Saro-Wiwa's video art practise seeks to map emotional landscapes, exploring their resulting physical performances and cross cultural implications. The space and relationship between reality and performance of particular interest. She began making video art in 2010 when she co-curated the exhibition Sharon Stone in Abuja, which showed at Location One Gallery on Greene Street in SoHo, New York. The exhibition explored the visual and narrative conventions of the Nollywood film industry. The exhibition featured artists: Pieter Hugo, Wangechi Mutu, Andrew Esiebo and Mickalene Thomas (with whom Saro-Wiwa created a Nollywood Living Room inside the gallery). For the show Saro-Wiwa also presented Mourning Class: Nollywood her first video installation and also her two alt-Nollywood films, Phyllis and The Deliverance of Comfort. The exhibition was covered by CNN and reviewed by Art in America magazine. Mourning Class: Nollywood is the first in an ongoing video installation series in which Saro-Wiwa explores the practice and performance of mourning and grieving. For Mourning Class: Nollywood, she asked five Nigerian actresses to cry on cue for the camera, breaking their performance with a smile. The piece has been shown at Location One Gallery, at The New Museum as part of Transition Magazines 50th anniversary birthday showcase and at The Pulitzer Foundation in St Louis. The work has been shown as both a single-channel and multi-channel piece. In 2011, Saro-Wiwa went on to make Sarogua Mourning, a video installation that confronted her own inability to mourn her father's public death. For Sarogua Mourning, she shaved her head and attempted a mourning performance for her camera. The piece was first shown at Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, and is currently on show at The Pulitzer Foundation in St Louis as part of The Progress of Love exhibition. In 2012, Saro-Wiwa was commissioned by The Menil Collection to make a piece of work addressing the issue of love in Africa for the exhibition The Progress of Love. Saro-Wiwa created the project Eaten by the Heart, a video installation and documentary project exploring love performances and heartbreak among Africans and African Diasporans. The first stage of this project features three online documentary shorts and a 62-minute video installation featuring twelve pairs of African/African diasporic couples kissing for between four and seven minutes each. The installation is currently on display at the Menil Collection.

In 2012, Saro-Wiwa shot and edited her first music video. "Dindi", a bossa nova and jazz classic written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, was performed by the São Paulo-based American jazz singer Alissa Sanders.

In 2008, Saro-Wiwa was commissioned to write an essay about the Nollywood industry, titled "No Turning Back", for South African photographer Pieter Hugo's monograph Nollywood (published by Prestel). Her short story "Lola of the Red Oil", based loosely on Saro-Wiwa's experiences as a lone teen traveller in Bahia, Brazil, was excerpted in a book for Riflemaker Gallery's 2008 Voodoo exhibition. Saro-Wiwa's short story "His Eyes Were Shining Like a Child" was published by Sable LitMag in 2009.

Zina Saro-Wiwa is recorded with the occupation film director. Recorded as film director, television presenter, television producer, videographer and filmmaker.