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Meet Stephanie ‘Accident Artist’ Nkemdilim, the Alté Creative Using Film to Document Emotions

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Nothing lasts forever. Sadly. Feelings, emotions, people, experiences, and even magic fade. The only things we have are moments and memories; moments as unannounced as they come, and memories as quickly as they go. These memories and moments are like energies. We carry them with us, and they can also be translated from one person to another.

Meet Stephanie ‘Accident Artist’ Nkemdilim, The Alté Creative Using Film to Document Emotions
Stephanie Nkemdilim. Image credit: IG/@oscarokonu

Meet Stephanie ‘Accident Artist’ Nkemdilim Mbanugo, a 27-year-old bi-tribal self-taught storyteller and videographer of Igbo and Yoruba descent. She’s the first of two kids and hails from Anambra and Lagos. She tells us about her journey of finding out who she is as a person, how she’s evolving, and her art – how it started, where it is now, and the impact it has made. 

“I am a lover of life. I love to live life. As much as I can be depressed at times, scratch that, most of the time, I love and also want to live life because I understand that life is beautiful.”

Nkemdilim

Nkem is an unconventionalist and a nonconformist who wants to live life to the fullest irrespective of the challenges she has to go through in her life, daily. For Nkem, life is an emotion that should be lived through and she loves to express these emotions so much that people say she’s a weirdo or acts like a child sometimes. She considers herself spiritual and is very big on energies and how they translate, and that has shaped her love for being around people. 

“I love to be around people. I love learning from people. I love loving people; yunno. I also love to dance. I’m not a huge fan of clubs, but you can find me in clubs where they play electronic dance music—lol, and we have places like that here in Lagos, Nigeria, such as; Eko Electro, Element House, Sweat it Out, House of Curiosity, Coded Underground and HFactor. That’s where you can find me, in places like these.

Nkemdilim

For Nkem, being around people has helped her understand who she is, what she’s meant to be, and why she is. Whenever she finds herself in places with people of different beliefs, interests, ideas and notions, and these people express all of their uniqueness and differences, she tends to go inward and immerse herself in their experiences; and this has made her a non-judgmental person.

Given the influence this has had on her and her art, she has made giving back and making an impact in people’s life something very important to her. She uses her artform to give as much as she can without expecting anything in return, making people feel loved, healed, appreciated, and happy about being themselves.

“I’m already on that journey of making people love themselves, appreciate themselves, be themselves, remember themselves, in this time or place, and see where they’ve grown, and appreciate the shortcomings and the long term; this is who I am as a person” — she tells Moda Culture.

As an Alté creative, she understands the need for freedom of expression and is able to express herself via any medium; whether through dancing or communicating, or in this regard, filming. She practices the art of understanding who one is by looking inward to whom they truly are, while communicating the emotions she perceives and understands to her audience, whether physical or virtual, in order for these audiences to see them for who they are and to help them (the audience) tap into their own existence and learn to express themselves more.

Despite her love for helping people see and love themselves better, she started documenting these electrifying moments of her muses by total accident. It started after six months of not working and a short while after she began filming, she decided to brand it up as the ‘Accident Artist’ and capitalise on it. 

Stephanie Nkemdilim. Image credit: IG/@oscarokonu

“I was meant to help Aye, who is an urban artist and DJ, take content for his page. All of a sudden, I find myself taking people and having fun. At first, it was just like taking people, but as I got into more and more, I found out that It’s much more than holding a phone, clicking on the camera, pressing record, and just getting content—just like mainstream. After I went back to view my videos, I got tapped into it, and I decided I want to actually focus on people’s emotions.”

Nkem believes that there is something in these people that have fun that’s more than just them dancing. It’s something she feels, the energy, the emotions; and she has decided to tap into it and document these electrifying moments with Accident Artist. She uploads her videos to serve as a reminder for these individuals who would like to relive these memories through her films, because moments are very fleeting and very forgettable. She also does this to help her audience get a feel of these emotions and feelings, hoping it translates to them like energy and revitalizes them. 

Meet Stephanie ‘Accident Artist’ Nkemdilim, the Alté Creative Using Film to Document Emotions
Stephanie Nkemdilim. Image credit: IG/@stylishsinner

Emotion is the art of this storyteller who helps people identify who they are, love themselves, and remember themselves in their happy and free states. These real moments captured in film, Nkem tells us, are more important than the technical perfection we see out there, and as an eye that captures these candid moments that can never be gotten back, she ensures she’s accurately able to make people see who they really are, and that witnesses, are able to tap into these emotions and express themselves.

“I’ll be dropping something soon, but not too soon. Something very special for everyone. The main goal is for everybody to be themselves and find themselves in any community that resonates with their ideas and a community where they can find love and love themselves.” — Stephanie Nkemdilim tells us.

We cannot wait for what this Alté artist has planned, but if it’s anything like her documentaries, we know it’s going to be electrifying.

Meantime, watch videos from the Accident Artist on Instagram HERE.

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