At the 36th São Paulo Bienal, Togolese artist Sadikou Oukpedjo presents 7 Billion People, a provocative installation that blends painting, sculpture, and mythology to confront passivity, injustice, and the human capacity for change.
Sadikou Oukpedjo infront of his work 7 Billion People at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice © Suzette Bell-Roberts
In conversation with Suzette Bell-Roberts, Togolese artist Sadikou Oukpedjo unpacks his Bienal installation 7 Billion People, a striking meditation on human passivity and responsibility. Combining sculpture and painting, Oukpedjo reimagines mythology to reflect African perspectives, channelling instinctive energy and urgency into forms that confront injustice, war, and social inequities. His work challenges viewers to consider their role in the world—as witnesses, participants, and agents of change.
Suzette Bell-Roberts: Your Bienal installation, 7 Billion People, brings together two paintings and a sculpture. Can you describe the central idea behind this work?
Sadikou Oukpedjo: The title speaks to the entire world—7 billion witnesses. I see humanity as largely passive in the face of war, injustice, and suffering. While so many endure hardship, we often remain silent, complicit through inaction. My work is a cry, a question rather than an answer. Through painting and sculpture, I explore this collective passivity, inviting viewers to reflect on their role in shaping a more just world. It’s a continuation of my long-standing themes of mutation and mythology, where I question human aggressiveness and our failure to intervene.
You’ve mentioned creating your own mythology in your work. How does this mythology inform the forms in your paintings and sculpture?
Traditional mythologies—Greek, Roman, Egyptian—impose a godlike figure that has failed humanity. I created my own mythology to envision a more merciful god, one that responds to human need rather than punishes. The figures in my work—humans, animals, hybrid forms—are not centaurs or minotaurs, nor literal representations. They are embodiments of this reimagined divinity. Through these forms, I seek an African mythology, a symbolic universe that can speak to our collective experience and moral responsibility.
How do you see your work in the context of the São Paulo Bienal’s theme of the estuary, a place where currents meet and life is renewed?
The Bienal’s theme resonates naturally with my work. Just as currents converge in an estuary, my installation gathers energy, history, and human experience in a shared space. I did not have to force the connection—the symbiosis is instinctive. Through contrasts in colour, form, and scale, the paintings and sculptures convey intensity and energy. It’s not about beauty—it’s about presence, urgency, and the immediacy of human experience.
Installation view of 7 Billion People by Sadikou Oukpedjor at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice © Natt Fejfar / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
Your figures inhabit a space between dystopia and utopia. How do you navigate this tension?
My figures are in between. They carry the weight of our dystopian realities—wars, inequality, environmental collapse—but they are also charged with hope, potential, and reflection. They remind us that while the world may feel chaotic, change is possible if we awaken from passivity. My art captures this liminality, this tension between collapse and possibility, and asks viewers to consider what kind of world they want to inhabit.
You speak of energy and instinct in your work. Can you elaborate on your process when creating these paintings and the sculpture?
I work from instinct, from the energy I feel in my body and in the world. When I paint or sculpt, I don’t plan every gesture—I respond, I think. If something doesn’t resonate, I don’t work on it. The goal is not commercial or decorative; it is to communicate, to provoke, to energise the viewer. Every brushstroke, every form is a physical and emotional gesture, an embodiment of the questions I carry about humanity, justice, and responsibility.
How do you hope audiences will engage with 7 Billion People?
The work is not about dictating meaning—it’s about sparking dialogue and reflection. People bring their own sensibilities, their own energy, to the job. Some will feel it intensely, some quietly. It’s normal for reactions to vary. I want viewers to question, to awaken, to think that humanity is not passive by necessity but by choice—and that each of us has the power to act, to shift the course of history, if we choose.
Sadikou Oukpedjo’s presentation, 7 Billion People, is on view at the 36th São Paulo Bienal until December 15, 2025. For more information, visit 36.bienal.org.br.
