Iyagbon's Mirror

A project by Samson Ogiamien and Cie Onyrikon: a mirror game of cultures, between contemporary and ancestral art forms, European museums and African rituals, initiation and border control.

Iyagbon's Mirror is a multidisciplinary show involving museums and performing-arts events. The question of provenance and restitution of thousands of artefacts exhibited in museums all over Europe is at the centre of a big debate today. This artistic proposition wants to be a powerful trigger for reflection across cultures, spaces and art forms. In a Western museum, an artwork is stolen to become a ritual artefact. The audience is first surprised, then invited to join the action, following the artists on a promenade out of the museum. Outside, an artistic ritual is held, playing with the magical dimension we can create around an object and inviting the audience to experience it.

… I ask for Uhun Ila, bronze head of Benin. The moon says it is in Vienna … — Samson Ogiamien

The mask

The ritual centre of the piece is the Iyagbon Mask: a bronze mask cast by Ogiamien in January 2020 in Benin City, Nigeria, with the royal casters' guild Igun Eronmwon, during an artist-in-residence stay that opens the project's timeline below. Onyrikon's performers interact with the mask during the show, and a new, transient body is built for it on site at every stop of the tour.

Cie Onyrikon

A multidisciplinary troupe dedicated to site-specific creation, based between Switzerland (Ticino) and France (Marseille) and founded in 2015 by Juri Cainero. Theatre, dance, music, video and installation are the main elements used to interact with the site and the audience.

Cie Onyrikon — website ↗ · Facebook ↗

Timeline

• 2017 — project conceived, in collaboration with Cie Onyrikon and the Repatriates project (ERC-funded artistic research into museums and repatriation)
• 2018 — "Iyagbon Below" (tryout), La Strada Graz
• January 2020 — artist-in-residence stay in Benin City, Nigeria: the bronze mask is created with the royal casters' guild Igun Eronmwon
• 28 August 2020 — pop-ups "The Echo of Iyagbon", Graz city centre, La Strada 2020
• 9–13 June 2021 — exclusive preview at the Cave di Arzo, Switzerland
• 6–7 August 2021 — premiere at La Strada Graz, with the Neue Galerie Graz / Joanneum; filmed as a short documentary by Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll
• 10–11 May 2022 — Geneva, Musée d'ethnographie (MEG), dance festival: start of the European tour
• May 2024 – January 2025 — "Mémoires" / SE-YA-MA capsule, MEG Genève
• 25 February 2025 — "IY'AGBON BOKHIAN" (Mother Deity Welcome), a one-day conference on the repatriation of Benin arts, National Museum Benin City — convened by Samson Ogiamien for Yaruya, with Cie Onyrikon, Universalmuseum Joanneum, Repatriates, National Museum Benin City and the University of Benin
• 2026 — planned sequel, "Iyagbon Bokhian", a site-specific performance in Benin City, Nigeria, at the Ogiamien Palace

In his own words

Samson Ogiamien has written at length about the project and the thinking behind it, in an essay titled "Ozeba, or Return My Belongings Unharmed or You Will Be in Trouble", published by the Repatriates research project. In Edo, his mother tongue, Ozeba means "return my belongings unharmed or you will be in trouble" — and Iyagbon names Mother Earth, protector of artefacts both at home in Benin and in the diaspora.

Watch

"And the Moon Says it is in Vienna" — a film by Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll & Samson Ogiamien, following the mask into Vienna's Weltmuseum. More films — the 2021 teaser, the IY'AGBON BOKHIAN conference and NTA Benin's news coverage — are in the Archive.