Extreme Unction Vol. 2 by Nwando Ebizie

From 28th June until 2nd July, Toynbee Studios is home to Nwando Ebizie's Extreme Unction Vol.2. The 70-minute guided multi-sensory experience by the British-Nigerian multidisciplinary artist has been created in collaboration with architect & designer Bethany Wells and musician & instrument designer Tom Richards, as a transformative space where grieving and loss meet ecstasy and exultatio. Nwando shares her creative proces, why Hildegard von Bingen influences her work and how art can help with the climate crisis.

Congratulations with the opening of your installation at What Shall We Build Here. For this project you worked together with Bethany Wells (architect & designer) and Tom Richards (musician & instrument designer) to create the structure wherein the multi-sensory experience takes place. What do you like about the creative process when collaborating with other artists?

I tend to work with other multidisciplinary practitioners. One of my early collaborators was Dr Eva Bracey – a sensory neuroscientist who I ran into at a music festival years ago. We both got so excited – talking about neuroscience, perception, art, behaviour change and this spawned a whole load of projects, including an art/sci installation that has toured to Melbourne and Singapore; and this project. Talking to Eva helped me develop my understanding of sensory perception and how I could incorporate this into this installation.

Another example has been my long term collaboration with Haitian dancer Zsuzsa Parrag – through whom I have learned about Haitian ritual culture – a culture which has beautiful spiritual practices for transformation of the self.

In creating Extreme Unction Vol. 2, I explored different types of sensory deprivation and immersion. Techniques that are part of ritual cultures but have also been employed to torture, to relax, to induce visionary states. Extreme Unction Vol. 2 utilises some of these techniques to draw people into a liminal state in order to have a numinous experience. 

Your multidisciplinary work calls for radical change. How do Extreme Unction Vol. 2 aid in achieving this mission?

Art as transformation. Transforming pain into beauty transforming heart break into new life via numinous ritual. The research that informs these proposals is grounded in neurophenomenology – I create a liminal alt reality experience – in order to invite people into a possibility of a neurodivergent experience – that is the bedrock of my connection to Hildegard. She experienced (whyever or however) an alternate reality, her own unique perception of the world. This is where her creativity, her insight came from.

As such the environment we are concerned with is internal – the questions are how to access the internal architecture and how to facilitate the projection of the internal experience onto the outer environment. The space is designed to offer possibilities of healing – through the tadelakt surfaces which remove CO2. From the environment, to the ASMR inspired vocals that have show efficacy in creating a sense of intimacy and relaxation, to the narrative arc that draws the person from stillness out to epic expanse and back to a soft intimacy.

Sustainability. In general I am interested in how different disciplines can work together to help solve the problems of the world. One way I think art or the creative act can help with the climate crisis is to inspire new possibilities. Extreme Unction Vol. 2 is in one way a speculative fiction – a proposal for a type of space that can heal and references backwards and sideways to cultures for whom sustainability is not a new idea but a feature of a symbiotic way of living as part of the natural world.

For example, the use of lime based renders – many cultures use these (including UK – although much lime render and pointing has since been replaced by concrete/cement, which is deeply unsustainable) we now know that as well as being more sustainable, they also remove CO2 and formaldehydes from the environment as opposed to other renders and paints, which off gas harmful chemicals for years.

Initially I wanted to coat the whole dome in tadelakt – a lime based render that hammams and other buildings in Marrakesh are covered in. But there was a basic issue for a touring art piece – that it will crack when moved. So I am looking at other options; I’m currently working with Osmose – a company that develops mycelium for use in art and buildling projects. Eventually the whole piece may be grown from mycellium or we will use mycellium tiles. Mycellium of course is very sustainable, comes from the earth, can be returned to the earth. My major interest is in what can be returned to the earth.

The dome shape is based on many things – including the traditional houses from my culture – which were made of clay and were indeed returned to the earth after their use. So the piece is an ongoing research into cyclical building materials, very inspired by reading Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism by Julia Watson. This book charts various building methods from indigenous cultures around the world which are more than sustainable – they are in symbiosis with the natural world – because they understand that our place is part of the natural world.

Hildegard von Bingen is mentioned as having influenced your performance installation. What about her life inspires you?

The starting point for this project was realising I had visual snow syndrome. Put simply, this means that I experience a different perceptual (mostly visual) reality to most people. When I first realised this, it was considered a rare condition – there were very few scientists who had researched it so it was hard to find information about it. I began a research project and as part of it looked for artists in the present and throughout history who may have described similar visual symptoms to the ones I experienced. Hildegard von Bingen came up as someone who people suggested may have been describing things like optical migraine. 

However what really interested me about her was, not only that she had these incredible visions from God, but also (uniquely for the time) had her visions and creativity immortalised in text. I was interested in the connections between atypical perception and creativity; could a possible neurodiversity lead to seeing the world differently and an enhanced creativity? She led an amazing life – composer, proto scientist, leader, European politician. I am just obsessed with her creative overflowing.

With the creation of alternate realities, you challenge your audience to question their perceived realities. What would you like viewers to experience when visiting the installation?

A liminal space where they meet themselves, drawing from the depths of possibility.

Extreme Unction Vol.2 is part of What Shall We Build Here, Artsadmin’s festival of art, climate and community.