Linda Lamignan is a visual artist whose work seeks to step outside the idea of seeing living landscapes and elements as a resource for economic profit and instead understand them as an extension of our own bodies.
2025 Biennial Year Find out more
Through video, sound and objects, Lamignan explores notions related to storytelling and translation, transformation and love. With an animistic approach, they work with materials connected to the industries, histories, living landscapes and cultural relations between West Africa and Europe. Their work has been shown in Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York (US), Post Territory Ujeongguk, Seoul (KR), Oslo KunsVorening, Oslo (NO), Kunsthal CharloXenborg, Copenhagen (DK) and Musée d’art de JolieXe, Québec (CA). Lamignan received their MFA degree at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and their BFA degree at the Academy of Fine Art in Oslo.
Liverpool Biennial 2025
'We are touched by the trees in a forest of eyes', 2025
Linda Lamignan’s work questions the different ways in which humans treat and value the natural world, whether for profit or as something to be respected and protected. They work with materials connected to the industries, histories, living landscapes and cultural relations between West Africa and Europe. This new multi-screen video work references the artist’s ancestry, the knowledge systems of animism – the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence – and geology. It centres around the long history of palm oil and petroleum extraction in Nigeria’s Delta State and the trade with Liverpool from the late 18th century to the present.
Footage features the Amaseikumor festival, which takes place every year in Gbaramatu Kingdom.
Linda Lamignan’s work questions the different ways in which humans treat and value the natural world, whether for profit or as something to be respected and protected. They work with materials connected to the industries, histories, living landscapes and cultural relations between West Africa and Europe. This new multi-screen video work references the artist’s ancestry, the knowledge systems of animism – the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence – and geology. It centres around the long history of palm oil and petroleum extraction in Nigeria’s Delta State and the trade with Liverpool from the late 18th century to the present. Footage features the Amaseikumor festival, which takes place every year in Gbaramatu Kingdom. It is a huge celebration where different communities gather to share artworks, traditions, dances and rituals that praise ancestral deities – spirits or gods associated with a specific family or clan, believed to offer protection or guidance. These deities often take the form of natural or living beings, including Barugu (the Monitor Lizard who is a father figure, protector of land, a god of war and deity of the artist’s grandmother) and Egbesu (the god of justice that the artist’s great grandfather invoked as he fought against Portuguese colonialism). The film also features the Bobougbene community in Delta State, a community that is known for its local small-scale production of natural and organic palm oil. This element contrasts and relates to the history of large-scale palm oil production and exportation between Delta State and Liverpool. From 2006 to 2009, Tompolo, the former commander of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), invoked Egbesu’s spiritual power for peace, oneness and divine protection in trying times. The eco-guerilla group protested to protect the lands and rivers from violence and oil exploitation led by multinational oil companies and the government. Lamignan challenges our perceptions of nature through Barugu and Egbesu, questioning how we relate to and use the natural world and how the idea of land as a resource has been perpetuated throughout time. Courtesy of the artist. Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, with support from Office for Contemporary Art Norway and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in London.
'We are touched by the trees in a forest of eyes', 2025
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Linda Lamignan, 'We are touched by the trees in a forest of eyes', 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025 at FACT. Photography by Mark McNulty.
This edition
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Linda Lamignan, Petroleum Landscapes If we let it burn. 2023. Petroleum wax with pigment on wooden panel. 240 x 120 cm (each). Photo by David Stjernholm -
Linda Lamignan, Agbala Abede, 2023. Petroleum wax with pigment on wooden panel. 200 x 140 cm. Photo by Jacky Jaan-Yuan Kuo. -
Linda Lamignan, Benikrukru, 2024. Petroleum wax with pigment on wooden panel. 60 x 80 cm. Photo by Linda Lamignan. -
Linda Lamignan, Still from the work Toru Torubiri Biri (Eye Sea Water). 2023. Video, 5 min. 40 sec., 3D Lizard by Kristoffer Amundsen, video material by Linda Lamignan, Geoffrey Ogoba and Seidougha Ogoba.
