Mmadi Make/Angelo Soliman.

Mmadi Make, later known as Angelo Soliman, was a Nigerian who arrived in Europe as a Slave but rose to become the personal friend of Emperor Joseph II. Soliman moved with Vienna’s high society and was friends with the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was reputed to have reformed the Freemasons of Europe. But he could not escape the stupidity of European racism. At the time of his death in 1796, Angelo Soliman was instrumentalized. His body was skinned, stuffed, and displayed amongst exotic animals in a museum in Vienna. The effigy was destroyed by a fire outbreak in 1848. His body was never buried. The installation and performance are a tribute, a symbolic burial for Mmadi Make/ Angelo Soliman.