Transforming Space with Mikael Owunna Studios

When I first wrote about my Spring 2022 Humanities Engage Immersive Fellowship, I had just begun to work with Mikael Owunna Studios (MOS), which is operated by queer Nigerian American multimedia artist Mikael Owunna. Now, almost five months, a graduation, and a new job later, I am still in awe of the work MOS is constantly creating to make Pittsburgh a richer, more diverse place. Owunna recently collaborated with 1Hood Media, The Redd Studio, and the Pittsburgh Pirates to celebrate local Black artists outside PNC Park at this year’s Art as Liberation Juneteenth event. We collaborated over the course of my fellowship to create an archive of critical engagement about him and his work and developed a catalogue of merchandise featuring his art.

The experiences I’ve been fortunate to have with Humanities Engage and my host organizations have led me to a post-academic career in which I’m able to not only utilize the skills I’ve learned as a fellow, but also remain engaged with both the university and the community I live in. When interviewing for the position of Web & Media Specialist that I would later accept at the University Center for International Studies at Pitt, it was my ability to perceive patterns, tell stories with data, and research and communicate ideas, problems, and solutions that I was able to connect to the needs of the role, even more than my ability to create some code on a website or find my way around a social media account.

On the last day of my primarily remote fellowship, I stepped foot in Mikael Owunna Studios for the first time. The studio fits a small gallery of Owunna’s art in the primary space, a workroom full of disembodied human head casts for the glass sculptures that are being designed as part of a project with Pittsburgh Glass Center, and a small tv on which we watched the 30-minute experimental dance film that Owunna and Redd co-directed. The film was incredible, and the dark scenery with the sparkling fluorescent paint lighting up certain pieces of the scene and the dancer’s bodies made the film feel boundless. Afterwards, Owunna showed me a door I had missed before. I opened it, and was shocked to find the entire scene from the film within a room hardly larger than the cubicle I now work in. Using black tapestries, careful camera angles, and multifunctional props, this small room had been transformed into an infinite universe in which the Igbo gods Eke-Nnechukwu and Chukwu dance the world as we know it into creation. This is so cheesy, I know, but I can’t help but think of the transformative opportunities that a single semester of a fellowship had for me in defining the route I took after graduating.

Emilee Ruhland
English MA, 2022
July 2022
 
Learn about all the Pitch Your Own Immersive Fellowships and their experiences with their host organizations.