Montague Contemporary is delighted to showcase four incredibly unique and rare spirits, each created by the artist Zina Saro-Wiwa, hand signed and numbered in limited edition bottles with custom labels featuring her artwork.
As an homage to the historical use of gin in West Africa as a form of currency in an otherwise decentralized market, and the potent use of cryptocurrency across Nigeria as a mechanism for economic empowerment, we will be issuing each bottle of Sarogua Spirit with a corresponding NFT. Unlike a purely digital work of art, each NFT is linked to one of the limited edition bottles of Sarogua Spirit, offering collectors the chance to acquire both a digital and physical artwork.
Created by British-Nigerian artist Zina Saro-Wiwa, Sarogua Spirit is a conceptual art intervention to challenge historical narratives about the Niger Delta - a region that has been known for turmoil and oil exploration despite it’s history as one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.
The craft distillery Sarogua, founded by Saro-Wiwa in Port Harcourt, produces incredibly small batches of 86 proof, twice-distilled palm wine spirit steeped with local botanicals and distilled in repurposed oil drums - a metaphor for the ways in which refining vs distilling has played out in the political and environmental landscape and affirming a commitment to soil not oil as the pathway forward for restitution. Named after a local Ogoni deity, a god of Rain and War, the name Sarogua is based on a poem entitled “The Poem to Sarogua” written by her father, Nigerian writer, television producer, and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, which is read before each ritual tasting.
Zina Saro-Wiwa was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s Global Thinkers of 2016, recognized for her work in the Niger Delta. She was Artist-in-Residence at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn 2016-2017 and in April 2017 was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Art. She has given talks and shown work regularly at biennales and museums around the world including Sao Paolo Biennale, Kochi Biennale, and the Tate in London. Her work can be found in many private and public collections, including MoMA, the Smithsonian, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, among others.
