Artist-in-Residence: Eto Otitigbe

Iterative Fictions

Weeksville’s Artist-In-Residence program allows artists to research the archives and utilize findings to develop new work incorporating aesthetic and historical foci linked to Weeksville. Artists connect with local residents and community stakeholders through focus groups or advisory committees to establish thematics, spur innovative ways to present work, and equitably frame their relationships with the community. A final project is presented at Weeksville in one of our many presentation spaces, with artists encouraged to find unique ways to activate areas of the campus. 

Eto Otitigbe is our current artist in residence. He is interested in recovering buried narratives and giving form to the unseen. Eto is a polymedia artist whose interdisciplinary practice includes sculpture, performance, installation, and public art. He is an Assistant Professor of Sculpture in the Art Department at Brooklyn College.

His residency project, Iterative Fictions [IF], is a transformative journey that actively engages with the historical treasures housed in Weeksville’s archive. It seeks to digitize a selection of objects from the archive, transforming them into virtual replicas that will be made accessible online. These scanned objects will be the basis for sculpture and XR that inspire engagement in physical and virtual realms by installing a temporary sculpture and XR experience visible beyond the gates of Weeksville. The project aspires to intertwine history, storytelling, community engagement, and cultural incubation, inspiring a new way of experiencing and interacting with our shared history.