DID YOU DIE THOUGH? – Confidence Omenai

OPENING RECEPTION – Saturday, January 28th, 2023 – 6pm – 9pm
Exhibition on view January 28th through March 4th, 2023

Bring your ear buds to listen to audio recordings of Confidence Omenai’s poems.

You can access audio recordings of each of the poems by scrolling down and clicking on the various links below.

Confidence Omenai’s “Did You Die Though?”
 is a mixed media art installation that will be on display at Leon Gallery from January 28, 2023 – March 4, 2023. You are invited to leave offerings at the community altar to honor the dead. Please bring your earphones to fully engage with each piece. Limited supply will be available.

“Did You Die Though?” is an exhortation to raise the dead. An invitation to grave robbery. An indaba embracing the ceremony of radical self-compassion and resurrection.”- Confidence Omenai

“This installation is a container for the forensic examination of ritual death as self-actualization. A crime scene as chrysalis. A graveyard or cocoon. A garden of a girl planted in a gruesome place, who answered death’s call, stole the keys to hell and bloomed into a field of free. Here is a road map through the wilds of divine alchemy. Here lie the slain selves of one Black woman, exhumed for the edification of all who fear dying. Did You Die Though is the stone rolled away to reveal She has risen.” – Confidence Omenai

About: Confidence Omenai, is a Nigerian American multimedia artist, poet, playwright, voice actor and breaker of chains. Her work explores death, rebirth, collective healing using the arts, martyrdom on the altar of motherhood and marriage. Confidence is an activist who specializes in intergenerational healing. She encourages radical self-interrogation across the nation. Confidence is a Program Coordinator for Collective Healing Through Art, TEDx Mile High Host, Speaker, Pink Door Fellow, and Oklahoma State University Alum and graduate student.
 

HOURS: 

Wednesday – Friday 10 pm – 6pm
Saturday – Sunday 12pm – 5pm
And by appointment.

Additional Engagement Opportunities at Leon

February 8, 2023, 6-8:00pm Honoring Our Ancestors: Curated Story Time

Confidence Omenai will host a legendary story time. We will pour libations for the ancestors. Speak their names. Participants will have up to 4 minutes to share the name, favorite memory, or life lesson from one of their ancestors. Signup sheet will be posted online at noon on the day of. Only 15 spots available. 

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” -Isaac Newton” 

February 22, 2023, 6-8:00pm Bury Our Dead

A collective healing circle facilitated by Confidence Omenai. We will create brave space for us to leave behind that which no longer serves our highest good. Complete a writing exercise and learn how to call on our individual ancestors for assistance.  

March 1, 2023, 3-8:00pm Ekphrastic Writing Workshop & Book Signing

Confidence Omenai will lead the writing workshop from 3:30-4:15pm. At 5pm. Workshop participants will be given the opportunity to read the ekphrastic poem written during the workshop. Immediately after, there will be a reading from the book “Did You Die Though?” Confidence will be present to sign copies until 6:00pm.

“I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.” – Audre Lord