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Series 2: Yinka Shonibare

British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare is a multidisciplinary visual artist, working across fabrics, painting, drawing, sculptures and film. He was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize in 2004, was made an MBE in 2005 and awarded a CBE in 2019. He is perhaps best known for his giant sculpture Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, which sat on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in central London in 2010 before being bought for the nation and going on permanent display outside the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. \n\nThis documentary is an intimate insight into Yinka Shonibare’s life and work, discovering his inspirations and influences, as well as the events and forces which have shaped him. It takes the form of an in-depth first-person interview with Yinka in his studio in east London, in which he talks candidly about his life and career. \n\nDuring the film, Yinka views archive footage, both from the public domain and from home movies, as well as a number of photographs and catalogues. Much of the footage Yinka has never seen before, and some of it not for many years. We see him surprised and delighted by it, as well as deeply moved at times: the emotions of his reactions, at times humorous and at other times tearful, are captured by close-up shots of Yinka’s face as he watches the material.\n\nYinka talks about his desire to be an artist from a very early age and his struggle to convince his family that this was a valid career path. He also discusses his time at Goldsmith’s Centre for Contemporary Art, where he was one of the now infamous Young British Artists who took the British art world by storm, not least when exhibited at Charles Saatchi’s Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1997.\n\nThere is also actuality footage of Yinka at work in his studio, drawing alone and liaising with his fabrics team for new pieces of work. We also see him visiting the Royal Academy, with his partner, where he views etchings by one of his favourite artists, William Hogarth, the inspiration behind Yinka's early photographic work, Diary of a Victorian Dandy, as well as discovering that his sculpture Cheeky Little Astronomer is on display in the Collection Gallery.\n\nThought-provoking and often emotional, the film takes the viewer into Yinka’s world, exploring not only the work that has made him one of Britain’s leading cultural figures, including his ongoing and key use of batik fabric, but also revealing how key events such as his upbringing in British and in Nigeria, and the spinal virus he contracted as a teenager, which left him paralysed down one side of his body, have shaped his life and work.

Source: BBC 1