About

RENA ANAKWE

Rena Anakwe is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, poet and healer working primarily with sound, visuals, and scent. Exploring intersections between traditional healing practices, spirituality and performance, she creates works focused on sensory-based, experiential interactions using creative technology. She is based in Brooklyn, New York by way of Nigeria and Canada.

Rena is a graduate of: the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (MPS), The Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University (MFA) and New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business (BS.)

Currently, she is a 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow for Interdisciplinary Arts and a 2024 artist-in-residence at The Kitchen’s DAP (Dance and Process). Rena was part of the 2023-2024 Lincoln Center Social Sculpture Cohort with her durational, public art project “Lifting the Ground Up [iter.02]” and awarded with a 2022 Art Matters Artist2Artist Fellowship, a 2021-2022 MacDowell Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Arts, a 2022 Jack Nusbaum Artist Residency at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and the 2021 Canadian Women Artists’ Award from NYFA & the CWC (Canadian Women’s Club) of New York. Rena was a 2020-2021 resident of the Jerome Foundation AIRspace Residency for Performing Artists at Abrons Arts Center, a 2020 Radiophrenia commissioned artist, a 2019 ISSUE Project Room Artist-in-Residence, a 2019 Abrons Arts Center (AAC) Sound Series commissioned artist, a 2018 Signal Culture Artist-in-Residence and has collaborated, produced and shown audio/visual/scent work at: The Omega Institute (NY), Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (NYC), Montez Press Radio (NYC), Serpentine, ‘Arts & Ideas’ (UK), AUNTS at LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island (NYC), Creative Time/Governors Island Arts (NYC), The Kitchen/Academy of Arts and Letters (NYC), The Momentary (AR), New Forms Festival x Lobe Studio (CAN), SCAD Museum of Art (GA), the Guggenheim Museum (NYC), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), TFANA (NYC), NY Live Arts/Park Avenue Armory (NYC), MoCADA (NYC), En Garde Arts/Brookfield Place (NYC), Radiophrenia (SCT), Weeksville Heritage Center (NYC), Dia Foundation (NYC), Fridman Gallery (NYC), Knockdown Center (NYC), ISSUE Project Room (NYC), MoMA PS1(NYC), CultureHub (NYC), Nublu 151 (NYC), Pioneer Works (NYC), H0L0 (NYC), Mount Tremper Arts (NY), Le Poisson Rouge (NYC), La MaMa E.T.C. (NYC), Danspace Project (NYC), MAD Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), TCC Chicago (CHI), MINKA [BAX/Submerge] (NYC), Les Nubians ‘Up Close & Personal’ Tour (VARIOUS), The Tank (NYC), CTM Festival (GER), the Museum of the Moving Image (NYC), Europe’s Capital of Culture in Turku (FI.) And was a guest curator for Knockdown Center’s ‘Sunday Service.’

Under the moniker ‘A Space for Sound’, Anakwe released the first in an ongoing audio series titled “Sound Bath Mixtape vol. 1” in Summer 2020, through New York City-based label and collective PTP. In Fall 2021, her album "Sometimes underwater (feels like home)" was released through RVNG Intl's Commend THERE Label.

Photo by Kofmotivation