ValUE

ValUE is a multi-layered project that challenges racism and ideas of ‘conventional’ beauty head on. The name comes from artist Valerie Uchechukwu Ebuwa’s initials, and also stands for the quality of the project’s content, in which she works to decode racial oppression through dance and visual art. Ebuwa’s work illustrates how the modern inability to contextualise Black bodies in contemporary spaces repeatedly occurred throughout history, and offers a better perspective on old contexts. It asks us to hold a higher regard for Black females.  

Ebuwa incorporates her own body in order to offer different perspectives on the Black female image, which has largely been objectified, exotified and excluded from art history. This use of her body serves as a contribution to the demolition of contemporary hierarchy, patriarchy and racism, giving an all-round archetypal makeover by reversing subject-object interrelations between artist and model. Through illustrations, paintings, photographs and films in collaboration with other artists, ValUE exposes their perceptions and artistic interpretation of Ebuwa’s body and challenges the notion of ‘unfamiliarity’ of this subject.  

ValUE critiques the systems which have restricted the public’s exposure to the Black female form into a narrow vision of racially presented views; systems which have birthed the cornerstones and imagery which form the structure of our very racist and patriarchal present. 

This work explores the reclamation and ownership of primitivism, by allowing Black women to curate and own their narratives – rather than settling on perceived notions and stereotypes of what the black female body is.

Originally programmed for the V&A museum’s Theatre and performance festival, ValUE was due to premiere in May 2020 but was cancelled due to the pandemic. ValUE found its first home at the Siobhan Davies Studios in September 2022 as part of the studios Artist Archive.

ValUE Framework

Alongside the visual project the ValUE framework creative methodology to navigate systems in order to identify, avoid/navigate anti-Black racism in the creative industries but also the world at large. It's been created to centre the experiences that Black people are ​​subjugated to but can be used by anyone as a structure to create a dialogue about inequity. The framework can be taught as a physical dance/movement workshop as well as practical writing session led by Valerie. The ValUE framework has been shared with 3rd year students at London Contemporary Dance School, the entire BA at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, the Young Associates at Sadler’s Wells and Artistry In Youth Dance