Hands That Steal From "Other" Mouths
CultureHub
47 Great Jones Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10012
January 17, 2025
7pm ET
In-Person
Free / Donate
Hands that Steal from “Other” Mouths is a theatrical two-player satire about Western empire and extraction in Africa. The project combines a 3D action arcade game with electro-pop, house music, and a teach-in on current day neocolonialist traps that uphold the unequal exchange between the Global North and South.
Hands that Steal from “Other” Mouths (HTS) began as a video game created by CultureHub Resident Artist Temitope Olujobi. Commissioned for Meow Wolf’s “The Real Unreal” in Grapevine, Texas, the original game personifies the exploitative relationship between the Global North and South, in a thrilling match of hide and seek between an anthropomorphic mouth (representing the Global South) and hand (the Global North). Since its humble button mashing beginnings, Olujobi has transformed HTS from what was initially a 2-player arcade cabinet experience into a live performance and geopolitical history lesson. This iteration of the project at CultureHub will specifically feature a newly created environment, gameplay, and music that all explosively combine to score the real world story of how the West currently wages Neo-colonialism economically in Africa.
The performance and teach-in will be hosted in person at CultureHub NYC. Attendees come prepared to cheer and jeer at the live video game action, then reflect and discuss the central questions of the performance/lesson: “Are African countries poor? If so, what factors are keeping them that way?” and “Why should we care?”
This project is supported within the CultureHub Residency program.
Game Design, Art, and Programming by Temitope Olujobi
With original music by Flarm and DJ Bad Apple