Karo Akpokiere

Publishing, in its varied forms, reflects a desire to engage with the world. It is an act of pausing: to reflect, to doubt, to collaborate and to gather disparate fragments into something whole. You share words and images with the hope that somewhere, someone connects with your point of view, or pushes back against it, and feels moved to pause and make something of their own.

My art practice is heavily influenced by my graphic design background and a long-standing fascination with storytelling. Publications offer a space where visual thinking and narrative instinct can be made into work that can be held, read, and passed between hands. More than anything, they are a way of bringing work into the world in a form that feels open and inviting rather than distant or precious.

I had the privilege of exhibiting at the Tokyo Art Book Fair in December, 2025 with five publications. For Missread 2026, I am applying as an artist/publisher.

Karo Akpokiere, Geist, The Seek Project, 2025, © Karo Akpokiere

Geist - Loosely inspired by the visual language of the seminal horror films Poltergeist and The Last House on the Left, this book of stark black-and-white drawings follows a fractured, fictional character’s shadowy and disorienting journey through entrenched socio-cultural, political, and economic structures. In Geist, reality unravels like a waking nightmare.

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Karo Akpokiere, Lagos Drawings, The Seek Project, 2025, © Karo Akpokiere

Lagos Drawings is a series inspired by the visual culture, everyday life, textures, signs, and sounds of Lagos, Nigeria.

It explores how the visual languages of advertising, religion, pop culture, and urban life in Lagos can be used to comment on the city's contemporary realities.

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The Past is a Path makes extensive use of archival documents to develop a fictional conversation that loosely highlights the events that led to Cameroon becoming a German colony and, the execution of Rudolf Duala Manga Bell. The conversation was inspired by the political, economic, and cultural disparities faced by people who have roots in colonized countries.

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