EDDY KAMUANGA-ILUNGA: A HISTORY LESSON

By Stephanie Amata 

Fragile 1, 2018. Acrylic and oil on canvas. 

One way to look at Eddy Kamuanga-Ilunga's work is as a deeply personal retelling of history. Kamuanga-Ilunga hails from The Congo and in the heart of his work is his perception of his country, a history lesson from his eyes.

Upon the first examination of his work, there is so much that greets you. The richly-colored fabrics jump out first, the deep black skin imprinted with circuits, the soft grey holding it all together. All these elements are not foreign in his oeuvre but there is something that sticks out in his recent body of work from his newly concluded exhibition at October Gallery in London, Fragile Responsibility. In this set, there's a new presence; a white face in the form of ceramic jugs, "Tunvas" that sits on the tables of the lamenting subjects in Kamuanga-Ilunga's set. The imagery is simple, plain as day, jolly, grinning white men overlook forlorn black bodies, but that is not all, Kamuanga-Ilunga has worked to fit in so much more in these pieces.

There's something about the space that I find compelling. It seems like it inherently belongs to the black subjects in these paintings. Maybe it is the familiar placements of lace-covered tables, the red coca-cola-like crates used as seats and the wooden stools that recall the settings of an African home or maybe it is how the subjects languish in anguish so comfortably; a safe space to cry. Which makes the intrusion of the grinning white man all the more sinister, echoing colonization in itself. The ceramic jugs also go beyond a mere presence of the white man but they also serve as a substitute for black bodies as these objects have their own history. During the slave trade, they were given in exchange for black bodies, also summing up another step in The Congo's history.

Fragile 7, 2018. Acrylic and oil on canvas.

But beyond the obvious presence of the white man as the ceramic Tunva, they exist in the presence of the most prominent feature of Kamuanga-Ilunga's paintings, the fabrics. In a talk, I attended with him, he thoroughly explained the history of the fabric as colonial merchandise, how Belgian cotton was made in Congo by the Congolese slaves. There are a few oddities that appear in the work, which Kamuanga-Ilunga uses to remind us that this is not just history but also the present. During the talk, one of the oddities was pointed out; the new presence of silk, while cotton is a familiar face in the work, silk was a new addition. He explained that silk and cotton have the same colonial relationship calling it "different timelines in the same history" as silk is also produced in Congo under similar duress.

Fragile 6, 2018. Acrylic and oil on canvas.

Then there's the grey that the subjects sit on top of. A vague, soft, untouchable grey. Quite poetically, Kamuanga-Ilunga likened the grey of the imagery to the actual far-fetched history of his home country. He knows it is there, it is present but just can't quite be reached or changed or touched. In a similar way, the text in the form of symbols that plague the background and occasionally hop into the foreground serve as another indicator of a lost and distant history. The lost language of a community with only gathered scraps of meaning left behind after being eroded away by colonizers. The layout of these symbols in Kamuanga-Ilunga's work recalls the style of the hieroglyphics on Egyptian relief relics, another strong tie into African history especially considering the relationship between Europeans and Egyptian history, its writing or rewriting and power.

To bring it all together to the present, I recall one of my first ever thoughts when I came across a Kamuanga-Ilunga piece. It had struck me as afro-futuristic which isn't the case now that I know more but somehow I can't seem to shake the reference. Maybe it was the cheap link between the black bodies and the motherboard-like circuits that flank them that made me arrive at my futuristic conclusion but I think there may be more. Excuse my film buff reference but I'd like to draw another link, hopefully not so cheap this time, between the Blade Runner franchise, specifically the replicants themselves and Kamuanga-Ilunga's black subjects. There's something quite deterministic about both sets of characters. Kamuanga-Ilunga's subjects are living lives doomed by their colonial history, caught in a cycle of forever addressing and facing this history, caused by (the white,though not unassisted) man. Similarly, the Replicants made by man are doomed to face their preordained fate (of expiration/being retired i.e. death), which they try to escape and be free from. In both cases, the subjects are trying to escape their fate arranged either via history or sheer manufacturing of ruin and continual destruction and erosion, unfortunately, this seems to forever haunt them and never really proves inescapable.


I've come to deeply appreciate this body of work. It is incredibly profound and striking. It is also worth noting the master craftsmanship that goes into the production of these pieces, some taking up to 3 months to be completed. These paintings are rich enough and beyond worthy of being in history classrooms as Kamuanga-Ilunga has provided, with his work, an education. 

REGARDING OTHERNESS AMONGST US

By Immaculata Abba

Earlier this month, I went to see the ‘Another Kind of Life: Photography at the Margins’ exhibition at the Barbican thrice. I intended to do so because I am obsessed with marginality: this quality of being, or regarded as being, outside the mainstream or centres of power. I am interested in alienation and resultant loneliness, in how the margins are brimming with creativity (because outsiders only have the option of creating another centre for themselves), and in the oppression, present in marginality more often than not, that makes marginal people marginalised. With these interests at heart, I went to the exhibition curated by Alona Pardo because it looked like an exposition on another way of regarding marginality and otherness. I was going to add it to my repertoire of tools on how to see, think about and engage with otherness.

GEORGE OSODI'S NIGERIAN MONARCHS: UNITY IN SUPREMACY

George Osodi. HRM Solomon Akenzua, Oba Erediauwa of Benin Kingdom. (2012)

George Osodi’s Nigerian Monarchs is a long-term body of work starting from 2012 up until 2017 in which Osodi aimed to display a unity in the diversity of Nigerian Monarchs. But what unifies them?

In January, 7 images out of the many were featured in Tafeta Gallery in London, in an exhibition entitled Royalty. Upon my first examination of Osodi’s sundry collection of Nigerian royalty from our multitudinous ethnicities is a rich exploration and presentation of Nigerian culture within our traditional forms of governance. But my second look finds something darker. A quite overt flex and showcase of wealth and power. Each image but a few holds in it a buff-chested exhibition of sovereignty, which I don’t believe comes from Osodi’s capturing of them but from the subject themselves, the kings and queens. Osodi’s goal was to document these images for posterity; where in the past there has been a lack of documentation and therefore a loss of identity or a documentation from the colonial perspective which coincided with moments where the traditional leaders were rendered powerless by the colonial masters. But now in a post-colonial, corruption-ridiculed Nigeria where the bourgeoisie has sub-alternated for the colonial masters to be the exploitative governing body these images of these ornamented extravagant leaders is almost like a slap in the face.

“IT IS TRUE”. SEEING ENUGU WITH IMMACULATA ABBA.

By Stephanie Amata.

Since we first met photographer and writer, Immaculata Abba at Project A where she kindly helped us immortalise the event with her images, she has come a long way. After spending part of a summer at London College of Communication doing a photography course, she decided it was time to document her "mystified" hometown, Enugu. With this, she created Seeing Enugu a vast body of reportage work which she exhibited at PhotoScratch, a work in progress exhibition in January. After seeing the work, I was keen on hearing the process behind it. So on a snowy Sunday in London, we sat in a noisy but warm Costa café close to her accommodation on Holloway Road.

Tell us a bit about yourself. 

I am writer and photographer studying History and Comparative Literature at Queen Mary University of London. My studies and my art are both motivated by my interest in outsiders and what it means to be an “other” in any context and also how we reconstruct the world based on our beliefs and how we see things and people. Essentially how our physical environment can tell us stuff about ourselves and our history. That’s something I’m really interested in both in my photography and in my studies. So most of my work is around that.

Between writing and photography, which one came first for you?

I don't think anyone started first, every time I try to think about where either of them started, I get to a dead end because it goes too far back beyond what I can remember. I remember being 5 and asking my mum for a camera and I’ve been writing forever. The roots have gone too far in my memory that I can’t identify them I just know I’ve been with them for as long as I can remember. But I guess, actually, writing has been favoured more because I’ve had the instruments. With photography, in order to have practised more, I needed a camera and I’ve not always had a camera, not even a phone camera so in that way writing has had the upper hand. But I can’t say I love writing more than I love photography.

Tell us about how your latest body of work, Seeing Enugu, exhibited at PhotoScratch came about.

My family moved to Enugu when I was 11 when I moved to boarding school. So you can imagine that I spent most of my time in boarding school and my holidays in Enugu so I didn’t get the opportunity to enter into the Enugu community. It’s been 10 or 11 years since I’ve lived in Enugu and I still don’t feel like I belong there or I know my way around there. So that mystifies Enugu for me cause I’m always trying to in a way claim it for myself too no matter how big or small the claim may be. Whenever such a mystery presents itself, it’s only natural that I try to explore it through writing and photography so I’ve written about Enugu previously. I have tried to take pictures of Enugu but like I said, I’m away for school and then back only for 3 weeks of the holiday. So the first time I really tried to embark on a project where I tried to see Enugu for myself, to explore Enugu or my lack of ‘Enugu-ness’ with photography was two or three years ago and I think the summer after that I was going to go back home with my camera but I lost my camera a week before I went back home. Then last summer was the first time I really had the opportunity and the presence of mind and the time because I was there for a month and I really went in. When I went in, obviously for a lot of projects, I’m not exactly sure what it is that is going to come out of it. But I knew I wanted a picture for myself, I wanted to see Enugu for myself. Exhibiting at photo scratch, it’s a work in progress type of exhibition, it really helped me greatly to see more about what my work is and I think now I can say very confidently that the project was a portrait of Enugu from my perspective, so it’s not the true story of Enugu, It’s not even a story. It’s me trying to capture the impression that Enugu leaves on me.

So you went in with no preconceived idea?

I mean there was an idea which was to see because I never see Enugu in the media I consume. So it was almost like I was just going to do whatever, I had the colours that I really wanted to capture, things that I wanted to tell myself that ‘It’s true’ that this is what I see. For example, the redness of Enugu, I remember once I was talking to one of my teachers in my IB [International Baccalaureate] school here in the UK, I think it was a geography lesson and I was saying that we have red soil back in Enugu and he said no that’s not true, that there’s no red soil in the whole wide world. So little things like that that I wanted to confirm for myself that ‘it is true’. Another one of those things was how much of an old city Enugu was. I really wanted to see Enugu for myself. I don’t know who I was trying to prove it to, maybe myself but I just wanted to prove that the way I felt about Enugu existed and I wanted something that when I went to my mind and when I try to imagine Enugu, I could readily call on these images as memory. That’s not the most precise thing but it was still a motive.

They were particular themes that came through like religion and the influence of Fulani people in Enugu.

That was very interesting but I didn’t bring it up earlier because it wasn’t anything new to me. I’ve been there for 12 years so I’ve seen the gradual changing of Enugu. Those two things were things that I was seeing better not newly. So with the Christianity, Enugu is such a Christian place, Igbo people are very Christian. I’m not saying it’s a bad or good thing at all but this is just who they are and it’s very integral to their identity and to what they make of the world around them. So it’s one of those things where I was looking at our built environment to tell me about how Christian Enugu is, and it really did, all the signboards, the houses. There was that picture of a fence that had the Holy Family painted on it and such a thing is not uncommon or like you’d see people’s gates in Enugu that had like religious inscriptions or “God protect this house”. It’s a nice way to see how people craft their worlds according to their beliefs and own for themselves. The Fulani-Enugu theme, when I moved in 2008, it wasn’t like that at all and it has been really interesting to see the development and the progression and the increasing Fulani-Muslim presence in Enugu due to their nomadic nature and I sense that a lot of it obviously has to do with what’s going on in the North and some people finding refuge in the East. It has not been rosy, it hasn’t been completely easy and nice for these communities because there have been clashes.  A number of them, like clashes between Fulani communities and indigenous communities, were killings. Some of them were far away from me but some were actually really close. I would know people who died, someone who went to my church and it was so interesting to see how Islamophobic Igbo people are like a lot of the people I know and talk to and just to see how, change, in this particular context has been complicated. I try to highlight those, I could do it better I feel but for now that’s what it is.

There is a complicated grey area when capturing more rural and less documented areas, the glamorisation of those places in certain media and the discussion around it. How do you handle that in your work, especially since Enugu isn't widely represented? 

It’s an argument almost as old as time. It’s a discussion that comes up all the time, a western or outsider or privileged people coming into a rural area and imposing their own view and selling that as the story of the place. I know it can happen outside racial lines so you could have Lagos people who live in Banana Island going to Makoko to do what white people would do. I’m aware of that and I’ve thought about it in the context of my own work and one of the things I got from family members was that perhaps I should have soon the more affluent side of Enugu, which haunted me for a while because I see how very valid a feeling, a sentiment it is in my work but, when I was making the work, I wasn’t thinking of proving any economic status or cultural superiority or lack of inferiority to anybody. I was doing it to see what it was I seeing and seeing what it was I was seeing from my own perspective as an inside-outsider of Enugu. My experience of Enugu is not affluent, okay that’s a lie it’s not completely affluent, my dad has money, we live in an expensive estate but I don't have friends at this place because I hardly spend time in Enugu. This summer, every time I went out of my house, I walked around my estate a lot of times, and I never saw people who actually owned the houses, I just always saw gatemen and some of the mallam’s children from the shack. Those were the people I made friends with eventually, those are the people I ended up interacting with. Every time my friend, Frank took me around Enugu, it never occurred to me that Enugu was impoverished or affluent. It existed to me in this vast middle ground between affluent and impoverished to the point that even thinking of Enugu is terms of a poor place or even a rural place did not really occur to me. I wouldn’t call Enugu rural, it calls itself a city even though I don’t think its a city I think it’s town but I won't say it’s rural. Enugu is not affluent is what I’m trying to say.

There's a huge sense of stasis that comes through in the work as if everything has been paused. 

I feel much more of that than what the actual Enugu is which is where I’d like to hammer in on the subjectivity of the project because as much as Enugu is fairly static, compared to any other place it's not the most bubbling place. I’ve lived in Aba as well it’s not a bubbling place at all but myself, even more, I am more an outsider. I don’t know if you remember the picture where there was the guy outside watching a football match and there was the red cross on the fence, I look to that picture as a self-portrait of me in Enugu. This is again another thing the feedback from photo scratch helped me recognise, I wasn’t trying to tell a story about Enugu, I was trying to, you could say, write a poem about my experience of Enugu so it wasn’t a documentary because that would be a bit dishonest because the research didn’t go that much into actual Enugu things. So calling it more of a subject poem and owning the subjectivity of that really releases me from the pressure to tell a true story, to be liable to all these different people and all the different ways you can see Enugu. I think that’s valid enough because you don’t have anything else from Enugu. It's not like I see anything else to start with. When you read a poem you don’t ask the poem to tell you the story or history or narrative of a place you ask it to put you in a place, you ask it to transport you to a mood and to get a sense. That is the closest to what my work is or trying to do.

You can visit Immaculata's website here or follow her on Instagram, here. Thank you for reading.

TAIYE IDAHOR: FEMININE POWER.

By Stephanie Amata

Taiye Idahor at the private view of her exhibition. 

Lagos-born Benin artist, Taiye Idahor has been on a steady rise in her career. Her latest bloom is her current solo exhibition, Òkhùo, which takes place in London's African Diaspora-centric Tyburn gallery following Victor Ehikhamenor's (also a Benin artist) In The Kingdom of This World. The exhibition features 3 sets of work. Firstly, Òkhùo - which consists of collaged outlines of women using images of Benin coral beads on photo paper. Secondly, Ivie - also featuring collaged images of coral beads, but on tracing paper. Lastly, one part of The Embryo Series - a set separate from the two on display - consisting of braided newspaper collaged against a light blue backdrop and the other part, not featured in the gallery, steel wool sculptures. Bunmi Agusto, our trusted friend here at A'naala and I caught up with Idahor to ask her a few questions after attending the private view of the exhibition on the 8th of February, focusing, in particular, on the theme of feminine power.

In Òkhùo you discuss the absence of women in power but what kind of power is it?

I am referring to an innate power, not something that is acquired, but something that exists already. For me, I see women as having that power. It just comes with being a woman already. But the absence I’m talking about is that women may not be aware that they have that kind of power. Hence, the absence that I create in the work. For example, I reference Queen Idia from the beads and royalty and everything, but it's not looking at that - it’s just a reference. But it’s speaking more to an innate power that comes with the feminine being.

Taiye Idahor. Oghogho, 2017.

Where did this come from? Anything that may have prompted you to start this conversation?

I can't say there is anything specific, to be honest. I think just my daily life. Living in Lagos is a huge influence because daily I’m thinking about my existence in that kind of society and culture. How do I live? How do I respond to things around me? It’s just a conversation that I usually have with myself. 

The beginning of this [Òkhùo] project - where it all started from - was based on an exhibition I took part in in 2014. [The exhibition] was 100 years of Benin City. It was happening in Benin and I really wanted to be a part of [it] and connect with home in some way. I’ve lived in Lagos all my life so I have this disconnect from home. For me, that exhibition was just an opportunity to spend some time in Benin and just do some work. Prior to that, I had been exploring the subject of women already so I wanted to remain on that. But at the time, the Oba of Benin had just passed away and they were preparing the son to ascend the throne and of course as they prepared the son, they prepared the mother to ascend her throne for her title as Iyoba. At that time, there were stories going on about whether she was going to be allowed to take up the title or not. That’s why I started to look at the absence that was already being created by this woman. It was important because chiefs are usually men. You have the king who is a man and all the chiefs that work under him are men as well. You have this one title that a woman could occupy -and there's all this controversy that regards whether she could take up the title or not. That was why I really started to think about the vacant spaces that women leave and the consequences that regard such situations. Before then actually, the main reason I was also interested in that, was that I had just done an exhibition prior to 100 years based on the absence of my grandmother in my family and looking at the consequences of her absence. Now, I'm moving forward to look at this absence again, created by another woman. So it just kind of happened. Now I’m looking at women generally, their absence from who they really are, their identity and the spaces they should occupy - not necessarily seats of power, but just accepting the strength that they have as women.

Taiye Idahor. Hairvolution.

Is that something you want people to see specifically or is it open, because there is a duality in the work, in the use of beads where Ivie means beauty and beads? 

Well, the thing about art in general is, I don’t think you can always think for people. I make the work and there’s a place from where I make it. However, I will not always be present with every piece and it's not every time there will be information available to every piece. So there is always that room for people to interpret the work as they please and for me, it's fine. But then I think it's quite obvious and even without meeting the artist or having any information, just a little research on beads and their origin already points you to Benin City. For me, that’s what's really important - that when you see the work it connects to Benin. Whichever way you want to interpret it, there’s that connection to my hometown.

On the topic of Benin, how has growing up in Lagos affected how you perceive Benin?

How I perceive Benin? I mean Benin is Benin. I think maybe the question is how do I connect with home now. I have a better connection with home now through my work. I think my work is now becoming my way to connect with home. That's what it is. It is my way of consoling myself that I’ve missed so much, that I wish I could speak my language better and all those things. It’s my only consolation I guess.

You have the smaller set of work here, "Embryo Series", can you tell us what that is about?

First of all, the Embryo series is separate from this [Òkhùo] work. It’s a very simple series. When I started it, I was looking at life and death. People think it’s quite morbid, but that’s part of life. Life is about birth and death. It’s inevitable. Although people never want to talk about it, it was a subject I really wanted to confront with that series. Where there’s birth, there’s already death ahead - whether you want to accept it or not. That was what the embryo series was about. It’s a combination of sculpture as well. The collage and drawings were more to convey the birth, and sculptures were more about death. Because there was this steel wool that was rusting, and rust is a form of decay and death, embryos are signs of life. The colour scheme is also a part of the work in looking at how we genderise colour. When a baby is born, blue - it’s a boy, pink - it's a girl. The titles I gave the work are also boy names - a sign of a child coming. It was playing with the ideas of life and death.

Taiye Idahor. Osarume #1, 2017. Collage on paper. 

Taiye Idahor. The day we are born is the day we begin to die, 2015. Steel wool.

And the other set here, "Ivie", is there a reason behind the different choice of colour and material?

For the Ivie series, colour has no significance, to be honest. When I started the series, they were on transparent paper - and I wanted paper because these are delicate subjects. When I was in Benin,  when it came to things of the palace, people didn’t like to speak about it. It’s just respect that they have that you don’t speak about certain issues. It is a very hush-hush thing - a very delicate subject. For people who even tried to talk about it, it was in corners. Which is why I used that kind of paper. This kind of soft and transparent paper to reveal that delicate nature of the subject. Also, they were not framed. I had just about 3 or 4 [sheets] just hanging on a line and for me, it was to reveal that they were vulnerable- because it was outside affected by the wind, sun and everything. For paper, usually you would frame to keep away from light, from air and those kinds of things - but they were exposed. So for me, it was a way of showing that delicate subject matter. That’s the main project but over time, you want to expand and try your work on other surfaces and see how it is. So the colour, not so much significance but the transparency - yes.

Taiye Idahor. Ivie, 2017. 

In sculpture, are you considering expanding this work to fully fledged sculptures?

We’ll see how it goes. When I started the work earlier, I collected a lot of beads. I was hoping to do something with it but I still haven’t. But I’m sure I will. I always somehow like to bring sculptural elements into my work - if space permits. I think most times, space to create sculpture is usually the limitation that I face. I think that’s one of the reasons why for now.

Òkhùo is on at Tyburn Gallery in London until the 9th of May be sure to check out the fantastic exhibition!

BEING 'TRANSPARENT' WITH ISAAC EMOKPAE.

By Bunmi Agusto.

If one is familiar with Plato’s The Republic, one would also be familiar with the Greek philosopher’s disdain towards the arts due to its ‘deceit’. He believed that paintings and sculptures only took viewers a step further from the integrity of the original subject especially with artists ‘tainting’ those subjects with their opinions; thus, Plato cited the arts as sinful and quite frankly he would definitely not like Emokpae’s exhibition Transparent, which confronts ideas concerning society and religion as well as other subject matters.

SYNTHWAVE BY ISABELLA AGBAJE

By Stephanie Amata. 

Niyi Okeowo. ARIA. 2017

In the last few days of 2017, specifically the 29th and 30th of December, Lekki Phase I was alive with electric Reds, Blues, Greens and Pinks as Were House hosted a two-day exhibition of the theme, Synthwave, a music genre that emerged in the 80's through the 2000's that took on an electronic sound with the technological advancements that were going on at the time. The exhibition featured Promise O'nali's bold paintings and 2-D sculpture, Morenike Ajayi's striking cross of photography and graphic design, GunnaZD's paintings and collage pieces, Ruby Okoro's star-studded photography, Painter Abe's Warhol-esque pop-art, Wami Aluko's simmering photography, TSE's ever mind-blowing photography, Kiel Orji's subversive sculptures, Chinedu Dalu's charged pieces, Andikan's engaging photography, Tomi Thomas' quirky doodles, Niyi Okeowo's Immersive worlds and 512 activity's well-lit installation to mention a few. I had a chance to talk to a few of the artists as well as the curator and organiser herself, Isabella Agbaje.





Isabella Agbaje. 

The mastermind behind it all gave me a few minutes away from her running-around and getting-shit-done to get a few words from her. Unfortunately, I couldn't record the dialogues because of the loud music so I took notes instead, therefore, most of the following conversations will be paraphrased. Of course, the first thing I asked her was why she decided to hold an exhibition of this particular theme. She told me easily that it was because she had seen the rise of digital work internationally and simply thought to herself that why can't we have that here, a space for artists of the sort to showcase their work. It is easy to see where the demand for a space for work like this comes from with the likes of neon lighting gurus, 512 activity setting up shop at every major event over summer and Christmas or TSE' s NO-1 exhibition touring all around Lagos and the general rise of afro-futuristic narratives with the likes of Nnedi Okorafor breaking into Hollywood with her speculative fiction of Africa's future. Agbaje wanted there to be a marriage of both the visual art and the music which, in the bubbling Lagos art scene is something that always goes hand-in-hand. Undeniably she achieved this with a playlist that was faithful to the New Age music scene, with the likes of, Lady Donli, Tomi Thomas, Aylø and Odunsi playing at Were House's airy exhibition space. She also went on to commend Were House commenting on their ability to maintain their exclusivity without being pretentious, stating that generally, it is important to protect your energy and crowd saying "if you go into a space with good energy you'll get vibes". Finally, Agbaje pushed on to mention how important this exhibition is to her as a way to give creatives a space for their creative expression and freedom saying she herself as a creative sacrificed the opportunity to show her work in favour of the other exhibitors. Nevertheless, she mentioned how amazing it was curating the exhibition despite some of the stress of doing it on her own. The fantastic turnout and vibes from the two days of the event merging exhibition and club night are a testament to Agbaje's foresight and dedication.



A post shared by Isabella (@isabellaagbaje) on Dec 29, 2017 at 7:40pm PST



Wami Aluko. 

Wami exhibited a vibrant set of pictures from behind the scenes of musician, Fasina's "Freaky" music video which she also did the styling for. When I asked her why she chose this set she said she thought the colours and the tones matched the theme of Synthwave quite nicely as the harsh red and blue washes cast on the model recall those of neon lights. She went on to explain how she likes the concept of getting ready or not being quite finished as is displayed in the images as the model, Wura Salvador is being prepped for the music video. She linked this to her previous body of work, which she exhibited at The Self Expression Exhibition in July, "Sorry I'm Late", which told the story of a messy but put together and fashionably late character mused by Anjola Fagbemi. The close framing of the shots as well speaks true to her style seen throughout her oeuvre, explaining that she believes that there is intimacy in proximity and therefore aims to channel that through. There is a clear expertise and confidence in the way Aluko uses her camera that makes it impossible to not be entranced by her images and the characters in it. She has also just released her first documentary 'For Those Who Listen' and you can check it out here.



Niyi Okeowo.

Okeowo put on 2 sets of works with two different narratives. The first set which consisted of digitally manipulated photographs of homely outdoor settings was quite striking. He explained that he had been inspired by the works of Edward Hopper in his ability to convey, stillness, emptiness and a sense of stasis in locations that typically should be the opposite. For example, Hopper's House By The Railroad and Okeowo’s photograph of Idanre Hills in Ondo share a lot of the same qualities. Hopper's 1925 painting of a majestic Victorian home is somewhat melancholic as we see the house at a distance with the train tracks cutting across the foreground further distancing us from the already lonely home. Similarly, in Okeowo's piece, the great hills are awash with blue giving off the same feeling of melancholia. The use of the wide shot is key here, while it is common in landscapes it does make things depersonalised as in Hopper's painting, which is also fairly wide. As veteran comic actor and filmmaker, Charlie Chaplin once said, "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot". It is that distance that detaches us or allows us to detach ourselves from the subject. With nothing in the shot to really invest in, we are then left with the image of the scorching yellow sun above the blue, with that contrast heightening the sense of stasis.

Edward Hopper. House by the Railroad. 1925. 

Idanre Hills by Niyi Okeowo



His second set was composed of works that had been entirely digitally rendered, which is quite fitting as it tells the story of a man in space, tying the medium together with the futuristic narrative. Okeowo's mind is clearly one that is constantly working as the tale behind the works were well-thought out and elaborate and which for the sake of spoilers I will not reveal. It does though centre on the aforementioned man that has travelled to space and created ARIA, an AI unit in his mind in order to compensate for the distance he feels from his wife. Tragically even his own mind's creation is still distant from him as in all the compositions they turn away from him and are never in contact with him. Okeowo's ability to compress his narratives into his pieces is something I truly marvel at and I believe that it is in his clarity and total control that he finds the skill to do this.

thegunnavision.

Gunna also showcased two series of works, both in tune with the theme of enslavement. The first set, prints of paintings onto canvas, featured two pieces of a dark-skinned character dressed in orange, the orange often relating to the American-style prison jumpsuit. Despite the seemingly unfavourable predicament, their poses seem quite tranquil with their eyes closed or head titled back in relaxation. They also pose quite steadfastly and assuredly in the frame taking the centre of it. Gunna explained that this was what he was trying to convey that they find "peace of mind no matter the situation".



[vrede.in.pyn]: peace in pain ii. 2016.

[vrede.in.pyn]: peace in pain i. 2016.

The second series, less optimistically, addressed the topic of mass digital consumerism and production. The series featured two pieces again, this time collages, presented side by side, he explained to me that one side represents "what they [digital corporations, the government etc] want us to see" while the other represents "what they actually do". While at first glance the two pieces seem quite clear with its breezy composition leaving lots of room for negative space, they are actually quite subtly layered. The top half of both pieces hold upside-down commercial buildings with notable brand names on them like McDonald's and even some iconic buildings like the CN tower in Toronto which ominously hovers over the subject in the lower half of the first piece. The buildings on the second piece are less flattering one of them even emits a thick cloud of dark smoke onto the red backdrop on the image. At the extreme corners of both images are CCTV cameras, the one on the first piece looks quite regular and benign while the one on the second takes on a more malicious look as the lens outline has been replaced with an eye giving it the 1984-esque Big Brother implication. The lower halves of the pieces I feel make the most interesting comments. The space is mostly occupied by a semi-circular earth over which, in the first half of the image, multiple presentations of the same man walk, one hand in pocket, other hand gripping a phone onto which his eyes are fixed. The word "NETFIX" sits below, a clever wordplay between the online streaming service Netflix and "fix" a word often used when drug addicts need a dose of the drug they are addicted to. As the man walks into the second piece he becomes bags of money and the word "faceless" another wordplay on Facebook this time, hides at the edge of the earth, Gunna explained that that's how he thinks corporations see us as numbers and not people. There also some logos hiding on the image of the earth like the bleeding Nike logo which he explained implied the low-income workers that essentially slave behind closed doors to create these products. There are so many brilliant nuances to this piece like the clear blue sky of the first but the red-tinged certainly polluted sky of the second and all the other signs carefully tucked away. Gunna plays with what we know, taking some of our easily accepted realities and throwing them back in our faces.

[sine.xchng]. 2017

Overall the exhibition was thrilling. The combination of sultry music and the white walls soaked in the hues of 512 activity's lighting scheme allowed you escape into the world that was the Lagos-style Synthwave.

ALEXIS PESKINE.

By Dami Ayo-Vaughn

“It’s really weird to be in a space where you get love and you have to be mad, you almost feel like a fraud.”

“The reception I received in London was beautiful,” says Alexis Peskine, “I got all this love.” The French-Brazilian artist is reflecting on his debut solo exhibition in London, Power Figures, which ran at the October Gallery between September and October. “Not that people in Paris don’t give me this warmth, but it felt like people in London were really listening, we're trying to understand my point of view and were respecting it and I felt that.”

We are sat in the café of the October Gallery; two hours have passed since the exhibitions final showing. Dressed in a tweed blazer, a brown shirt, bow tie and orange trousers, Peskine looks more like an academic than an artist. He sips on a glass of red wine and soaks up the silence in the room. “It was a very draining project,” he says, “physically and mentally.” 

I tell him that the reception makes it worthwhile. Grateful as he is for the reception, he worries about how it will affect his work: “It’s funny you have all this anger but after a while you get all this love and it’s like you try and stay connected to that anger and the people who are in the struggle {black experience},” he says, with his eyes fixed on mine. “It’s really weird to be in a space where you get love and you have to be mad, you almost feel like a fraud. But you have to wake up and feel connected because it’s still happening. You can’t forget the struggle. For me, it’s important to go back to what’s going on and the injustices.”

Power Figures

Born in France, to a Franco-Russian father, the son of a Jewish refugee, and an Afro-Brazilian mother from Bahia, Brazil, Peskine grew up in a multicultural family, of which he is deeply proud: “To grow up with so much culture to me was a richness. My father is French and Russian, but he loved Brazilian culture; that’s where he met my mother, he spoke Portuguese really well and was interested in the culture. They taught it to me and I harboured it. They represented it and I wasn’t ashamed of it.”

Peskine’s multicultural identity is something which has informed much of his work, with the concept of identity being a recurring fixture in his projects. His latest project, Power Figures, explores identity and the Black Experience of people in Congo.

Using nails as his central medium, Peskine produced large-scale portraits of Congolese people, alongside photographs of children. The use of metal forced into the wood refers to the Minkisi “power figures” of the Congo Basin, whose function it was to keep evil spirits away. The portraits are stunning. Peskine captures the beauty of the black skin in a truly remarkable way. ‘The Architects of New Djenné is perhaps the standout portrait amongst the set, with the gaze of the figure conveying a sense of both tranquillity and frustration.

Abdou Slide

This pride in his culture did not come so easily. The second of four children – all boys – Peskine grew up predominantly in France, but visited Brazil often. As fond, as he is of his childhood Peskine admits he faced “uneasy episodes”, having to deal with discrimination and racism in France. In Brazil, he faced a country where the standards of beauty were overwhelmingly white and Eurocentric, despite possessing the largest black population outside of Africa.

Did being a mixed-race person make it easier? “It’s easier, but it’s funny because people tend to misunderstand. A lot of white folks will say ‘you’re as white as you’re black’. Yes, on paper, but in the experience, it’s not as simple as that. I could go into the black community and black people could see me as black, I would be welcomed as a black person. Now, if I go running around saying I’m white everybody is going to look at me like I’m crazy. So, this is not really the truth.” He pauses momentarily. It is a touchy subject. “When I was a teenager, getting ID checked by the police violently, getting racist insults, I couldn’t be like ‘Oh hey I’m half-white take it easy’. Maybe you get discriminated less than if you are darker, but when you’re in a racist situation you can’t pull out the mixed card. I definitely have to acknowledge colourism. I’m really aware of it, it’s real. But, that doesn’t take away from the {black} experience.”

Peskine’s understanding of the Black Experience growing up was chiefly informed by his parents: “I was fortunate enough to have parents who despite not being the most educated people on the question of Blackness, knew certain things and educated me the best they could,” he says. “They took me to marches against racism, gave me the books on Afro-Brazilian culture, we watched Roots.” Despite being grateful for his parents’ efforts, Peskine admits it wasn’t enough. “They gave me what they had in their hands, which was good and better than a lot of people, but I knew some people who were fortunate enough to know about African history prior to colonialism. I didn’t have that.”

At the age of 17, he was spotted at the Nike camp and moved to America to play basketball. This helped get into Howard University, where having to choose a major he chose Painting and Photography: “I naturally went to that because I’ve always been interested in that field. My whole family is in the arts, so I kind of grew on that.” Being in Howard, Peskine’s understanding of the Black Experience changed immensely as it helped fill the gaps of what he knew growing up. “I was blessed to have gone to Howard University, it’s a school full of teachers that teach you black history. I learnt a lot of stuff.”

Aljana Moons Doudou

An important lesson Howard taught Peskine was how to treat the black skin in shoots: “In our photography class we would talk about the grey card, but would mention that it’s not for us {black people}. We used it like everybody else but being in an environment where (what) you’re going to shoot is black, you have to learn how to shoot them and I was aware of that as soon as I learnt photography because I was in that school.”

Aljana Moons Twins Sleeping

Having lived in America and spent time in the UK, where race issues are in spotlight, Peskine is frustrated that this is not so in France: “In London and a lot of American cities, even with the racism that occurs, people are much more open to talk about racial dynamics and acknowledge the discrepancies, compared to France,” he says.

“France is hypocrisy at its height. I think we might be the country with the biggest black population in the whole of Europe, and still, people don’t want to address these questions. They do not want to acknowledge race-based discrimination. They are fragile.”

He runs his hands through his hair. “A lot of people think they are open-minded, but they are not. You have a lot of people who think of themselves as liberal or intellectuals who will be advocates for white supremacy and will not confront that. People see it as either you’re the KKK or you’re open-minded, but it’s not like that. You could be open-minded, have gone to school, have friends of all colours and sexualities, but still say ignorant things or not acknowledge people’s pains. That is what is done a lot in France. They don’t understand those dynamics. It’s very much swept under the rug and it’s very frustrating.”

Peskine’s biggest frustration with France is its efforts to prevent minorities from building communities. “Whether it’s the UK or US, they have cultures based on communities and understand people need communities, whereas in France it’s seen as threatening the norm of whiteness. When you’re in an environment that is fully white and discriminating against other people, thus performing the biggest act of communitarianism, but they don’t call it that, even though the biggest act of communitarianism is whiteness.”

Peskine is worried about coming off as ‘an angry black man’. In this situation, however, there is no other way to feel. Conversations on racial issues in France have been slow, with the Constitution banning the collection of race statistics. This, in turn, has made it harder to shed a light on racial issues in France. It would be wrong to suggest that data could help remove racism in one swoop, but it can at least point the light in a direction, and be used to inform decisions, policies and fight denial.

The government is, he believes, only making things worse. Their spreading of misleading information is leaving him worried about the future. “France is still exploiting a number of countries in Africa, making themselves rich, yet complaining about migrants coming. The government acts a certain way and then the media who work for government defuse certain information to the masses and make them think a certain way and not to be honest,” he says. “People don’t have time to deconstruct the information they are being fed. They see TV and media as the gospel, the news is the truth, so if they are lying most people are living on a fake truth. These altered truths cause people to act a certain way, especially in times of crisis and find a scapegoat.”

Is it the role of the artists to counter this? Should we expect artists to point people to the truth? “I can’t say what other artists’ job is, but I decided that it is for me. So, I’m trying to do it. My job is to be honest as an artist. I’m not going to force people to talk about conscious things ‘cause that would be fake. It has to come from within,” he says. “I think as human beings it is our duty. We have a duty as a society, and a society is a bunch of individuals, so as individuals we should do that. It’s true as an artist I have a platform and can influence a lot of people, but we should all do it.

“I can’t judge someone who wants to escape from it {racial issues} and enjoy a moment without being beat over the head with race. But, it’s like being in a war zone and trying to walk over dead bodies like they are not there when they are.”

Carefully he sits up on his chair. “All humans try to better themselves. We can all mess up, we can all do or say the wrong thing. I have done and said things that are wrong. The thing is to fix yourself after you make a mistake. To reassess yourself. To not do it continuously. Try and understand what you did and why it’s wrong.”

Photos of Alexis Peskine taken by Dami Ayo-Vaughn.

RECLAIMING THE AFRICAN NARRATIVE AND REDEFINING 'AFRICAN'

An academic report by Bunmi Agusto. 

In the past, the recording and preservation of history had not been taken seriously enough in some African countries. A prime example is my home country Nigeria. When I was a child, History –as a subject- was scrapped from the country’s national curriculum so I was hardly taught Nigerian history let alone Nigerian art history. I had to go out of my way to find books and articles about the masks and sculptures that make up most of Nigeria’s rich art history. However, whilst conducting all this research, I discovered something: Western authors and researchers had and have been the ones recording and preserving our history for us.

“If Africans do not tell their own stories, Africa will soon disappear.”

 - Ousmane Sembene. 

The desire to finally extensively record Art History from an African’s perspective has come at a crucial time. Although we have seen African artists succeed internationally in the past, we are no longer in the age of postcolonial modernism. We are no longer just living in a post-colonialism, post-empire world; we are in the age of the diaspora and we are in the age of globalisation. There is no longer a single unified point of view of a culture or from a culture. This has led to shows like the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair which annually exhibits the work of African Artists in London, New York and now Marrakech. I was lucky enough to attend the fair in London in October where the works of two artists –Lina Iris Viktor and Kudzanai-Violet Hwami- grabbed my attention. As children of the diaspora, Viktor was raised in London by her Liberian parents whilst Hwami was raised in Zimbabwe but received a portion of her education in London. Therefore, I shall be analysing each of the solo exhibitions held in London by these two African artists who have been highly influenced by the London Art Scene and now represent a sector of it. As Stuart Elliot said during his lecture Making The Rounds, at every point in history, there is a dominant culture, residual culture and an emerging culture. Therefore, I see the work of Viktor, Hwami and myself as part of the emerging African culture.

Lina Viktor’s Exhibition at the Amar Gallery

Kudzanai-Violet Hwami’s Exhibition at the Tyburn Gallery

The title of an exhibition helps define the context in which the artist made a collection of artworks. Subsequently, both exhibitions have highly significant titles which hint at the idea of being a member of the diaspora. The title of Hwami’s exhibition is 'If You Keep Going South You’ll Meet Yourself' which suggests that one needs to travel and be moulded by different experiences and cultures to truly be able to know oneself.

“The beauty of being a child of the diaspora is that we are able to reinvent ourselves and what it means to be African.”

 -Kudzanai-Violet Hwami

As previously stated, there is no longer a single unified view of a culture and Hwami recognises that. Whilst studying in London, Hwami was able to adopt a different standpoint and view her home country from an outsider’s point of view. Although Zimbabwe has suffered from dictatorship and other hardships, Hwami is hopeful for the future of her nation and that is why she chooses to present “a futuristic vision of African life, a fictional utopia filled with creativity and without borders.” On the other hand, Viktor chose to give her exhibition the title 'Black Exodus' which alludes to the biblical story of the Israelites migrating out of Egypt in search for better lives and also draws parallels to the migration of Africans over the years. Although Hwami is hopeful for the future of Africans, Viktor is more troubled and curious about the future of Africans dispersed all over the world if society continues on its tangent of prejudice. Fundamentally, Viktor has a realist approach rather than Hwami’s optimistic one. I personally identify as more of a realist than an optimist but I appreciate Hwami’s view and the vision of Africans presented when she and Viktor’s work are put side-by-side.

A curious similarity between both exhibition spaces is that they are both underground, almost suggesting that post-modernism contemporary African art is a still a hidden treasure waiting to be unearthed and brought to the spotlight. In addition, both underground exhibitions lack windows and this excludes the outside environment for the viewers and makes them feel like they have truly travelled to a different space. This effect enhances the works of both artists as it complements the idea of the travelling aspect of the diasporic lifestyle.

On the other hand, there is a stark difference between the rooms holding each exhibition; Black Exodus is in a dark, black room whilst If You Keep Going South You’ll Meet Yourself is in a bright, white room. The contrasting spaces emphasise the difference in the artists’ perspectives on the direction in which the story of Africans and their migration is going in. In some illustrations of Africa during the 4 colonial eras such as in Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, the continent is often referred to as the “dark continent” in need of enlightenment and Viktor plays with this idea using the space and lighting of her exhibition and the works themselves. In the all black room, there is a suggestion that one’s journey is ambiguous and mysterious; however, the spotlights illuminate these golden artworks that draw the viewers in. Within these artworks are elusive black figures that blend in with the space as well as golden symbols. 

Pictures I took of VIktor's work in 'Black Exodus'.

The gold lines and patterns allude to Egyptian hieroglyphics which in itself gives an example of the benefits of Africans narrating their own stories. Unlike most Africans, Egyptians narrated their own history through hieroglyphics written in stone rather than orally and this has allowed their representations of their people to not be susceptible to alterations and therefore to be viewed as majestic and dignified, unlike many African countries which were seen as savage and primitive. The elusive black figures in Viktor’s work are photographs of the artist herself covered in black paint which makes her work an example of her taking charge of her own narratives. The figures are mostly camouflaged within the background but are made obvious with their gold hair; this creates dystopian images of a majestic creature forced into hiding and irrelevance by society. Oddly, although both artists are presenting narratives of Africans of the diaspora. Black Exodus is a representation of a dystopian world for Africans while If You Keep Going South You’ll Meet Yourself is utopian.

Violet Hwami’s ‘Family Portrait’.

Hwami’s vision of a fictional African utopia is amplified through the vibrancy of the colour she uses and it comes to life due to the fact that most of her paintings are life-sized. On the contrary to Viktor’s Black Exodus, Hwami defines her intentions as wanting “the portrayal to be playful and fun,” she adds that she “definitely [doesn’t] want to convey a negative image of the characters in [her] paintings”. Hwami, as an African narrator, has chosen not to present the Zimbabwean characters in a negative light and although this may be a biased narration, it is certainly different from western narrations of Africans. Hwami’s method involves using old family photos and manipulating them using a computer software before finally painting them. Therefore, there is nothing primitive about Hwami’s work; she is able to refer to her past African life in a modern way and her paintings appear slightly unfinished and manipulated, almost as if they too are being altered and shaped by the experience of being a part of the diaspora. This method and its effect on the final appearance of the paintings coupled with the exhibition’s title shows Hwami’s opinion of how diverse experiences help to form a more complicated sense of identity for an African such as herself.

Images of my ongoing work. 

Like Viktor, I tend to work with self-portraits and images of people I take pictures of in my everyday life. However, I never thought to make the connection that I was doing it to present my side of the African narrative. Often when I go home to Nigeria, I get comments from older Nigerians saying my work is “not African enough” and they also ask why some faces are so dramatic and sad. Now, I see my work as a mid-point between Viktor and Hwami’s work; I am more critical of the societies I have lived in as well as both the restrictions and benefits of tradition in African culture. Furthermore, I have concluded that I am not sure where the Nigerian story is going. A single perspective does not always make an accurate unbiased story but it is a piece of the puzzle. Hwami and Viktor’s exhibitions in London are puzzle pieces that form a part of the picture of emerging African and diasporic culture. Thanks to these artists and their exhibitions, I no longer see not being “African enough” as an insult but to see it as validation that I am neither part of dominant Nigerian culture nor of residual Nigerian culture; I am part of an emerging diasporic culture that will one day be dominant.