Inside Artist Room: Chukwudi Nwachukwu on The Right to Rest
As Chukwudi Nwachukwu concludes his four-week Artist Room Residency with CISTA ARTS, we spoke with him about the development of The Right to Rest, an ongoing photographic project exploring the spaces between work, waiting and recovery.
Beginning with interviews and portraiture in Port Harcourt, the project gradually expanded through the residency towards landscapes, everyday environments, empty spaces and traces of human activity. In this conversation, Chukwudi reflects on that shift, the role of curatorial dialogue in developing the work, and where he hopes to take the project next.
Inside Artist Room: Chukwudi Nwachukwu on The Right to Rest
As Chukwudi Nwachukwu concludes his four-week Artist Room Residency with CISTA ARTS, we spoke with him about the development of The Right to Rest, an ongoing photographic project exploring the spaces between work, waiting and recovery.
Beginning with interviews and portraiture in Port Harcourt, the project gradually expanded through the residency towards landscapes, everyday environments, empty spaces and traces of human activity. In this conversation, Chukwudi reflects on that shift, the role of curatorial dialogue in developing the work, and where he hopes to take the project next.
What first led you to develop The Right to Rest?
Throughout 2026, my work has kept returning to one subject: labour. Through The Labour of Rivers and No Rest for Us: The Grindster, I explored the demands of work, responsibility and the pressures people experience in their everyday lives.
After working on these projects, I began to think about what happens when people are no longer working. Do they actually rest, or do the responsibilities and pressures of work continue even when the physical activity has stopped?
That curiosity led me to develop The Right to Rest. I wanted to approach the subject of labour from another perspective, looking at rest and what it means to different people. In a way, the project continues the conversation started by my earlier works while also marking the closing chapter of my exploration of labour in 2026.
Has your understanding of “rest” changed during the residency?
Yes, my understanding of rest has changed quite a lot.
Before the residency, I thought about rest mainly as taking a break from work or stopping an activity. But after speaking with people during my research, I realised that rest means different things to different people.
One thing that stayed with me was how difficult it can be for someone to mentally disconnect from work, even after the work itself has ended. A person may be physically inactive but still thinking about responsibilities, financial pressures or what they need to do next.
This made me question whether having time to pause necessarily means having the freedom to rest.
It also left me with a question I still haven't been able to answer: Do human beings ever truly rest?
What did you discover through the photographic experiments?
One of the biggest discoveries was realising that I didn't always need to photograph people spacesto communicate the idea of rest.
As I continued photographing, I began paying more attention to empty spaces, landscapes, objects and places where everyday work happens. I became interested in what these environments look like when there is little or no activity.
Travelling between Port Harcourt and Nsukka also helped me see the subject from different perspectives, beyond my immediate environment.
I experimented with colour grading and cropping to communicate the moods I wanted viewers to experience. Some photographs worked better with neutral colours, while others took on a different feeling through warmer and sepia tones.
These experiments helped me develop a visual approach that goes beyond simply showing someone resting.
How are you thinking about people, spaces and objects within the project?
At the beginning, people were at the centre of how I wanted to tell the story. But as the project developed, I started thinking about how spaces and objects could also communicate the presence or absence of activity.
An empty space doesn't necessarily mean that nothing has happened there. It may be a place where people have worked, waited or spent time before moving on.
I became interested in photographing these environments and the traces of human activity they leave behind.
For me, these photographs create another way of looking at rest. They allow viewers to think about the people who occupy these spaces, even when those people are not visible.
I also find it interesting that a quiet environment does not necessarily mean the people connected to it are experiencing rest.
How has the curatorial dialogue during Artist Room affected the project?
The curatorial dialogue was an important part of my experience during the residency.
The weekly feedback encouraged me to reflect on what I had worked on, what was changing and what I needed to develop further.
I also found the live discussion with Dr Fatemeh Takht-Keshian particularly useful. It gave me the opportunity to speak about the project, explain my ideas and receive feedback while the work was still developing.
I think having these conversations helped me look at the photographs more carefully, especially when it came to selection, sequencing and how the images communicate with one another.
It also made me think beyond producing individual photographs and consider how the project could develop into a stronger body of work.
Where has the project reached by the end of the residency?
By the end of the residency, I have developed a selection of photographs that I consider the foundation of The Right to Rest.
I have been working on the selection, sequencing and colour grading, paying attention to how each photograph connects with the next and how the images communicate the project's concept.
Looking back at where I started, I can see how much the project has developed, particularly in my visual approach and understanding of the subject.
However, I don't consider the project finished. There are still questions I want to explore and environments I want to photograph.
For me, the residency has helped establish a direction for the project, but I believe it will continue to evolve over time.
What would you like to happen next?
I want The Right to Rest to continue as an ongoing photographic project involving both documentary and staged photographs.
Rest is something that affects everyone, but people experience it differently depending on their lives, environments and responsibilities. I want to continue exploring these differences as I travel, meet people and encounter new places.
I also hope to bring the project to a wider audience through exhibitions, publications and collaborations with initiatives concerned with rest, health and human wellbeing.
Another area I'm interested in exploring is the relationship between art and academia. I would like to see how photography and research can come together to encourage more conversations about rest and its importance in our lives.
The residency may be ending, but I see this as the beginning of a much longer photographic investigation.
About the Residency
The Right to Rest was developed during Chukwudi Nwachukwu’s Artist Room Residency with CISTA ARTS, from 22 September to 22 October 2026.
Artist Room is CISTA ARTS’ flexible, process-led online residency programme, supporting artists through research, experimentation, work-in-progress and curatorial dialogue.
The Right to Rest remains an ongoing project and will continue to develop beyond the residency.
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