For the first time in Germany, Die Neue Sammlung displays
an installation by Ngozi-Omeje Ezema.
An installation is an art project used to design a room.
Ngozi-Omeje Ezema is a ceramic artist from
the country of Nigeria in Africa.
She was born in 1979 and attended the University of Nigeria.
She teaches today at the same university.

Like other African artists, Ngozi-Omeje Ezema rethinks
the ancient art of ceramics from her home country.
For a long time, ceramic was only used
for everyday objects in Africa.
But Ngozi-Omeje Ezema wants to make more of it.

Her work is based on her own experiences.
She refers to these topics, for example:
where she comes from, her family or the female body.
She is often inspired by the shapes and materials
that you can find in nature.
Or she is inspired by materials
that she happens to find somewhere.

Ngozi-Omeje Ezema’s installation is made of
hundreds of ceramic pieces of different sizes.
The artist puts them up at different heights with
transparent nylon strings.
If you look at all the pieces at once,
they look like a big vase made of many small pieces.

The strings are like in a mobile.
To Ngozi-Omeje Ezema, this means:
life is in balance.
The ceramic pieces are meant to show
how fragile life is.

This installation with the ceramic pieces is
a little bit confusing for us.
But this is exactly what the artist wants.
We have a different idea of a vase.
Visitors are supposed to think about
what they see in the installation.
There can be many different answers to that.