An unclassifiable polymath, British-Nigerian multidisciplinary artist Nwando creates Afrofuturist speculative fictions and alternate realities at the intersection of live art, experimental music, and multi-sensory installations. She proposes new myths, rituals, and provocations for radical change and radical transformation of the self and community, drawing from science fiction, Black Atlantic ritual cultures, biophilia, neuroscience, electronic music, and her own neurodiversity and Nigerian heritage.
She has performed at clubs and festival stages worldwide as her art-pop alter-ego Lady Vendredi (a blaxploitation heroine from another dimension), including performances at Latitude Festival, Kings Place, the Barbican, Southbank Centre, Bonobo (Tokyo), Tempo Festival (Rio de Janeiro), Blok (Zurich) and opening for Mykki Blanco, Peaches and Princess Superstar.
Her critically acclaimed first EP The Passion of Lady Vendredi on her own imprint Tears In The Rain records caught the ears of tastemakers such as Gilles Peterson, The Wire and BBC 3’s Late Junction. This EP was supported through Peterson’s Steve Reid Foundation and as a Steve Reid Innovation Award winner, she was mentored by Floating Points, Emanative and Brownswood Records.
As a composer and musician, she was awarded the Oram Award with special commendation (2019) and the British Council in Brazil grant (2018), and nominated for an Ivors Composer Award in 2021, amongst others. Her music and sound pieces have been broadcast on BBC Radio 6, BBC Radio 3, NTS Radio, Worldwide FM, and Radiophrenia. Her critically-acclaimed works include the multimedia installation Distorted Constellations and ecstatic operatic experience Hildegard: Visions. She has been commissioned by and has had her works shown across the UK and internationally, including London Sinfonietta, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Brighton Festival, Science Gallery Melbourne, Institute of Contemporary Arts, BALTIC, Site Gallery, and Humber Street Gallery. Nwando’s sound art installation ‘The Garden of Circular Paths’ at Hepworth Gallery received a glowing Guardian review , and in July 2022 Nwando is set to deliver a symposium at the Cognitive Science Symposium in Toronto.