Statues Also Breathe

Statues Also Breaths is a major collaboration between the Department of Fine & Applied Arts of the Obafemi-Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, 108 students from all across Nigeria, and the families of the Chibok girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria in 2014.

Inspired by the iconic terracotta heads of Ife and titled Statues Also Breathe, this collaboration was initiated by artists Prune Nourry and Ade Bantu. It not only seeks to raise awareness about the plight of the girls who are still missing but also to remind the world of the wealth and diversity of Nigeria’s history and culture, as well as the current challenges that we collectively face as a global community.

After meeting the families of Chibok to conceive the project, Nourry and Bantu were entrusted with portraits of their missing daughters, which Nourry, a trained sculptor, used as inspiration for eight heads sculpted in clay —creating portraits of the high school girls in the style of the iconic 15th-century Ife heads. From plaster molds of these eight original sculptures, 108 heads were cast in clay sourced from Ile-Ife by a community of women potters from the Yoruba town of Ilorin, together with students of Obafemi-Awolowo University.

On September 30, 2022, a day-long workshop was held at the university. 108 students sculpted and transformed each head into unique sculptures using photographs of the missing girls. A delegation of mothers of the Chibok girls, along with girls who managed to escape Boko Haram captivity, was also in attendance, honoring and recognizing the friends and loved ones depicted in the sculptures.

A documentary features the sculptures and the making of Statues Also Breathe, allowing all collaborators to share their voices and unique perspectives—whether teachers, students, or parents of the missing girls. Everyone became a participant in the creative process. The project is grounded in conversations with the mothers of the eight models and their determination to ensure that the world does not forget the girls. Each element of Statues Also Breathe works to sustain global attention on their plight.

This “army of girls” is indivisible and must remain together as a complete artwork. All 108 heads were signed by the students and were first exhibited in Lagos before traveling internationally. To support this project and amplify its impact, Nourry and Claude Grunitzky established the Catharsis Arts Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering collaborative art that gives voice to communities and promotes healing through creative expression. The foundation organizes international exhibitions to highlight societal issues and embody remembrance. Upon completion of the tour, the “army” will return to the continent to enter the permanent collection of a museum.

At the time of the abduction, Nourry was taking the Terracotta Daughters–her army of 108 Chinese girls, sculpted in the tradition of the Xi’an clay warriors, a hybrid embodiment of girls unborn due to birth selection in China–around the world (Shanghai, Paris, New York, Mexico City). 

It is then that she decided to initiate the collaborative project of a new army for the girls of Chibok. Statues Also Breathe is the vein of her previous projects, which explore scientific aberrations and human selection (Procreative Dinners, 2009–2013) or gender imbalances (Holy Daughters, 2010–2013; Terracotta Daughters, 2012–2030), Prune Nourry set out to shed light on the “missing” girls of Nigeria: 276 girls from the Chibok region, kidnapped from their high school in 2014 by Boko Haram Islamist fighters, to be married by force. Today, 108 of these girls, the “Chibok girls,” are still missing. 

For Statues Also Breathe, Prune Nourry and Adé Bantu first approached the association of the parents of the kidnapped girls, to outline the general framework of the project, and then the Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the Obafemi Awolowo University of Ile-Ife, which is distinguished by the strong cross-displinary approach its teaching takes, including anthropology and science, and which possesses the largest collection of Ife’s rich sculpture heritage. The families untrusted them with the portraits of their missing daughters to be portrayed by each sculpture.

Researchers, historians, and 108 students—from Ile-Ife and all over the country—joined the adventure, documented by a film crew.

The preparation of the clay and the casting of the preliminary heads was done by a group of young female potters from Ilorin, Kwara State and students from the Department of Fine and Applied Arts. Introducing the girls to the Ilorin potters and to the casting process, in academic style, is a form of an empowerment for them. Before contact with the workshop, they had never worked as sculptors before, and had never experimented with casting using plaster molds. This, in a way, contributes to girls education and empowerment. Meanwhile, the exercise is a revalidation of the Obafemi Awolowo University’s “town and gown” concept, rooted in the culture aspect of the university motto: “For learning and culture.”

The artistic tradition of Ife, the ancient religious capital of Nigeria, famous for its 15th-century terracotta and bronze heads, is one of the major inspirations for this project.

It draws not only on the uniqueness and virtuosity of the sculptural practice of the ancient Yoruba city, but also on the spiritual aspects of its culture for a project that gives a renewed face to the disappeared, an extension of the portraits of the past and a new present. In Yoruba belief, the head is the home of the Ori, the seat of the soul and the place where a person’s fate is determined. 

According to the legend of the Yoruba people, Ile-Ife is the place where the deity Obàtálá created the first humans, using clay. For the Statues Also Breathe project, the clay used to make the sculptures comes from the same place as that used in the 15th century to shape the famous ancient heads.

Research into materials and their properties is a fundamental part of Prune Nourry’s work, as is her involvement with many diverse craftspeople. A sculptor by training, material culture is at the heart of her work, experienced within sculpture, as well as in architecture.

From photographs given by the families of the missing girls, between May and July 2022, Prune Nourry modeled eight portraits in clay, recreating the faces of the school girls in the style of the ancestral heads of Ile-Ife. From these clay heads, eight molds were made in plaster. After building a new workshop at the Obafemi Awolowo University, a casting session was held in early September, coordinated by the artist and teacher Dr. Michael Olusegun Fajuyigbe.

From the eight molds, female artisans from Ilorin, assisted by volunteer students, cast 108 heads in Ile-Ife clay. The clay was dug from the same area used centuries ago to make the ancient heads. These 108 heads became the foundation for the one-day workshop.

On Friday September 30, 2022, 108 students from the Obafemi Awolowo University and from all over the country (including Ile-Ife, Lagos, Benin City, Osogbu, and Cross River), who responded to the call for participation launched in the summer of 2022, worked on the 108 clay bases. Accompanied by their teachers and Prune Nourry, these artists-in-training worked to make each face unique, and each signed or marked their version. The army of missing girls took shape as a single, indivisible work. The workshop was accompanied by a delegation of mothers of the missing girls and some of the girls who had returned from captivity. As they walked through the installation, they all recognized their friends and relatives.

The Catharsis Arts Foundation is organizing a World Awareness Tour for Statues Also Breathe. It’s inaugural show was held in Lagos, Nigeria. The Tour will continue from February 2026 in Marrakesh .