Sustaining Wenger’s sacred art
Even in death, Susanne Wenger, the Adunni Olorisa, and her phenomenal contributions to art in Nigeria continue to open fresher windows of appreciation and relevance of contemporary Nigerian arts to the globe. Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME writes on New Sacred Art, an on-going group art exhibition featuring her works and those of her disciples.
“On a personal note, during my time in Nigeria and my tenure as managing director of Guinness Nigeria, I have come to appreciate the great talent that resides in this country and the richness and variety of the culture. All of these factors come to play in our decision to support the documentation and cataloguing of the work of Susanne Wenger and the New Sacred Arts Movement. She has given her special talent for many years, almost a lifetime, to demonstrate how arts can be borne out of the culture of their environment. Anyone who has visited the site will appreciate the magical qualities it possesses. Although there are many fascinating and historical places throughout this heritage-rich country, I know of no other, in contemporary times, that has given birth to such a rich vein of artwork.”
These were the remarks of the former managing director of Guinness Nigeria, Mr. Keith T. Richard in the foreword to Susanne Wenger: Her House And Her Art Collection, which capture the cultural depth and relevance of the on-going group art exhibition, New Sacred Art at Quintessence Falomo Shopping Complex, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Leading the pack of exhibiting artists is Sangodare Gbadegesin Ajala, a batik artist and high priest. Other artists for the exhibition include, Buraimoh Gbadamosi, a stone and wood carver, Ojewale Amoo, sculptor in cement and wood, Kasali Akangbe Ogun, a wood carver, Rabiu Abesu, a wood carver and Adebisi Akanji, a sculptor in cement. These artists according to the organizers of the exhibition are distinct and separate from the popular Osogbo art school that comprises of contemporary artists.
Sangodare is a representative of traditional Yoruba culture and the last son of a Sango priest who was later raised by Susanne Wenger after the death of his father. He did not only filled the role of Wenger’s eldest son, but has many different vocations: highest initiated Sango priest, traditional herbalist and healer and batik artist. His batik paintings are concerned with his religious experience, as his art builds a bridge between traditional Yoruba wisdom and the ever changing world of today.
Sangodare though worked with Wenger on batik, but his art is being described as ‘most inventive and successful.’ Interestingly, his work is always perceived as keeping the spirit and quality of batik at alive. As an Osogbo-based artist, his exhibitions have not been restricted to the local circuit as he has exhibited across Europe, North America, Brazil, and Cuba. In Wenger’s words, “The art of Sangodare embodies and radiates that quality which makes and keeps him a Sango priest.”
Gbadamosi is one of Wenger’s closest friends (‘soul brother’) and artistic collaborators who along with Akangbe and Abesu created most of the wooden carvings in the Osun Groves. He is best known for his magnificent stone sculptures, which are displayed throughout the Sacred Groves as well as inside and outside of Wenger’s house at Ibokun road, Osogbo. On his artistic expression and inspiration, Gbadamosi said: “My mind, heart and soul are the secret of the inspiration to produce my work. They are working together to tell me what to do at the right time just immediately I handle a stone.” Like Sangodare, he is equally widely exhibited in Europe, North America and Canada.
For Akangbe Ogun, a carpenter by training later joined Wenger erecting scaffolding and iron reinforcements for her large scale sculptures in Osun Groves. But Wenger soon recognized and encouraged his talent as a wood carver and sculptor. Along with Abesu and Gbadamosi, his distinctive carved pillars and large wooden sculptors are a dominant feature of the New Sacred Art in the Osun Groves. He is also responsible for erecting magnificent roofs, many shaped like birds with parted wings, which protect the shrines.
The artists of the New Sacred Art Movement are without exception, non-academic artists who work mainly in batik, wood and cement. Although form and style are largely flexible in the works, techniques are generally those of Yoruba tradition, thus making most of their artistic representations exclusively those of the orisa, or gods. Also dominant are the human or animal figurative sculptures.
The exhibition will run till October 24 at Quintessence Falomo Shopping Complex, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Adunni Olorisa Trust
Susanne Wenger, who was born in 1915 in Graz, Austria and dedicated her life to traditional Yoruba religious practice for over four decades, died on January 12, this year. Until her death, she has collected many works of art by the artists of the New Sacred Art Movement and other collectible pieces of traditional art at her residence on Ibokun Road, Osogbo, Osun State. As part of efforts to immortalize the name of Wenger as well as preserve her legacies, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in collaboration with the Adunn Olorisa Trust (AOT), embarked on the documentation of the collection for posterity.
The first stage of the documentation began with the numbering of the works, mapping of their locations, and photographic documentation. Over four hundred items were listed. The outcome of this is the publication of a book, Susanne Wenger: Her House And Her Art Collection, edited by Nichola Saunders and Augustine Mrezeder-Taylor. Last April, Osogbo was alive with various activities to mark the final burial of the late Susanne Adunni Olorisa Wenger. The people of Osogbo led by the Ataoja, Oba Iyiola Oyewale Matanmi III, in collaboration with the Osun State government, have dedicated the period to commemorate her. There were other artistic and cultural exhibitions to celebrate her legacies. The week-long event witnessed a lecture titled Culture and Development: The Role of Mama Susanne Wenger in the Development of Osogbo delivered by Ambassador Segun Olusola and Dr. Oyeronke Olademo of the University of Ilorin. It climaxed with an art exhibition tagged: Susanne Wenger, Her House and Her Art, and the launch of a book by Adunni Olorisa Trust (A O T) at WOCDIF Centre.
SPAN raises alarm over uncertified dance instructors
By Ozolua Uhakheme
Assistant Editor (Arts)
Worried by the inherent risks children are exposed to when taught by uncertified dance instructors the founder and president of the Society for the Performing Arts in Nigeria, Mrs. Sarah Boulos has called for an effective standardization in the teaching and practice of contemporary dance in the country. She said many of the dance instructors operating in schools and communities across the country do not have the training and skills necessary to teach Nigerian children the dance foundations they require to build on for a future profession of international standard in the art of dance. She noted that certification in various genres of dance is an avenue to help theses instructors empower the children in the right way.
Mrs. Boulos who spoke on the Risks, Opportunities and the Right Move at a media briefing in Lagos, explained such deficiency in instructor could affect the bones development of children because ballet dance requires the expansion of muscles and bones unlike traditional African dances.
She however assured that SPAN in collaboration with Dance Dynamics, Nameless Dance Academy of the Middle East and Dance Guild of Nigeria is committed to empower and train the dance instructors that desire to become successful in their careers by certifying them with two programmes. She therefore charged potential dance instructors to sign up with SPAN’s certification programmes in order to enrich the children for better professional performances. “From our environmental analysis and experiences over the last three years, we have realized the need and importance to address the community on the short-comings rampant in the at education programmes of our schools especially in the art genre of dance,” she added.
Mrs. Boulos stressed that the essence of the association’s programmes is to bring dialogue together between traditional Nigerian dance and contemporary dance in order to make Nigerian children richer in dances. Nigeria dances, she said, are well known to the globe but ‘all we need is to expose Nigerians to the level where they can appreciate all the ramifications of dance without forgetting their roots.’
One of the recently certified ballet dance instructors with the SPAN is Academy, Lebanon. SPAN is a non-governmental organization that aims to set a world-class standard for performing art education and services in Nigeria, and to offer opportunities in dance, music, theatre and visual arts to talented Nigerians. As part of its activities to discover talent, the association is embarking on a special project to raise a selected team of instrumentalist and vocalist who will be groomed to become one of the best in Nigeria by renowned personalities in the arts industry. Audition is October 23, by 12 noon at Guiding Light Assembly, Parkview Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Again, Uniben art school in fresh rebirth
After two major unsuccessful attempts at regrouping as disciples of an art school, some fine arts graduates of University of Benin are back on the block. This time, they are emerging as the University of Benin Trained Artists (UBTA), a platform for the sharing of artistic productivity of its members. Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME writes on the group’s maiden art exhibition, Treasures of Benin opening at the National Museum, Lagos on October 31
Unlike other art schools (Zaria, Osogbo, Auchi, Ife and Nsukka), the Benin art school has been unable to bring its graduates together under one formidable and broad based forum to project their artistic skills despite several attempts in the past. Yet, the Uniben art school is no doubt, a distinct and unique school, which has produced many great artists. But the non-existence of such group can be traced to the elasticity of freedom and openness granted arts students by its founding father, the late Prof. Solomon Irein Wangboje who believed strongly that artistic endeavours must not be boxed up by stylistic tendencies.
Today, that liberal approach of Prof. Wangboje is seemingly being reviewed by a group of arts graduates of the school, University of Benin Trained Artists (UBTA), who is reawakening the consciousness to carve a place for Benin art school among other existing art schools. To this end, a maiden a group art exhibition, Treasures of Benin, is being organized by the group to announce its entry into the art exhibition circuit. Treasures of Benin will open at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos on October 31 and runs till November 6 featuring 20 artists who are expected to present either three paintings or five sculptures each depending on area of specialisation.
At a preview session in Lagos, the chairman of the group, Kenneth Njoku said the art exhibition is aimed at showcasing the artists’ views on burning issues of the day ranging from politics, to social, religion, economic and cultural. He explained that at the close of the exhibition, Uniben art school would have gotten a formidable group that would regularly share her views through exhibitions.
“Due to non-existence of a well articulated forum to project their artistic voices collectively, the University of Benin Trained Artists was formed by well meaning graduates of the great Benin art school. It was initiated by Kenneth Njoku, Ekwueme Edison, Ejeh Louis, Evans Imafidon, Edozie George and Ifeoma Anyaeji,” he said. Njoku explained that the emerging group would stand the test of time because the structures are on ground to forestall collapse. He noted that UBTA is an answer to yearning of studio practicing artists of the Benin art school, who saw the need for a formidable and broad based forum to share their artistic productivity. He added that UBTA is a group of artists who obtained their first degrees from the University of Benin and who have remained steadfast and dedicated to their chosen career. On the membership of the group, he stressed that any intending member must have five years post graduation studio practice.
Akin Onipede, a member of the group observed that though there were groups like Ekenwan art grads and AWANSCA, that went under, the latest attempt is a reawakening to carve a place for Uniben art school not with the intent of forming of stylistic traits but to make strong statement. Ames ofong exhibiting artists are Bolaji Ogunwo, Akin Onipede, Evans Imafidon, Kenneth Njoku, Okezie Okafor, George Edozie and Olojo….
The group’s aims include the promotion of research and innovation in studio practice, to contribute to knowledge and encourage upcoming artists on the gains of studio practice and to protect and promote the ideologies of her alma matter.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A day in time
Mirror The Master: Stimulating artistic skills of youths
Aina Onabolu, Akinola Lasekan, Ben Enwonwu, Solomon Wangboje and
Bruce Onobrakpeya are among early generations of top Nigerian artists. But for every passing year, there is an increasing gap between them and young Nigerians, especially within the visual art circle. This gap is what Access Bank Plc is closing with Mirror The Master, a holistic package aimed at developing young masters of tomorrow, reports Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME
Determined to fill the widening gap between Nigerian master artists and younger generation artists, Access Bank Plc has initiated the celebration of masters of today by developing the young masters of tomorrow through creative workshop and exhibition across the country.
The programme, Mirror the Master, which will be implemented by Kambari Arts, a UK based NGO, is a model structure in which young Nigerians are challenged to create piece of art works inspired by a renowned master artist, the late Ben Enwonwu. About 150 young artists between the ages of 9 and 16, will engage in creative art workshops and focus on the art work of the master, learn from them and use the experience to inspire their own creative art-piece. The pilot programme will flag off on Wednesday, October 14 through 16, at Osogbo, Osun State with renowned artist, Jimoh Buraimoh as facilitator for the zone. Textile artist, Nike Davis, is expected to man the Zaria zone between January 25 and 27, 2010, while El Dragg Okwoju facilitates the Benin zone from October 26 to 28 2009. Prof. of Sculpture, El Anatsui will be in charge of the Nsukka zone from January 18 till 20, 2010.
Briefing art writers in Lagos, the head, Corporate Social Responsibility, Access Bank Plc, Bolanle Babatunde said the bank came up with the programme because of the increasing gap between art masters and younger generation Nigerians adding that it would be focusing on exposing younger ones while celebrating the masters. “We have a strong vision to make a difference by developing the art masters of tomorrow. These young ones will be exposed to the Masters and gain inspiration from the works of the Masters who are celebrated from time to time,” she assured, disclosing that the bank has enlisted the advice, guidance and support of the Ben Enwonwu Foundation. Enwonwu’s son Oliver, CEO of the foundation said: “We are pleased to support the programme and we have no doubt that this initiative would go far in encouraging creativity in our youth and ensuring that they become the true Masters of tomorrow.”
The director, Kambari Arts, Chima Ezeilo, explained that the final art competition and exhibition would be conducted at the national level, though Access Bank aimed at implementing the pilot model in all of the bank’s countries of operation in Africa.
“The aim is for the programme to run on a year by year basis. Each year, a renowned living master artist or representative will be selected for study. The selected artist’s work will be reviewed and young participants will visit the artist’s gallery/ studio workspace and interact with the artist/ representative to get a better understanding of the motivation that inspires his/her work. Participants will then endeavour to create their own work, inspired by the master,” Ezeilo said.
He stressed that at the zonal workshops, participants would take part in sessions that would inspire their creative abilities and that selected master/ representative of the master would participate in these workshops in order to enable the students have direct contact with the artist that is being studied.
According to him, the two days intensive workshops would provide opportunities for participants to portray their artistic expression and express the knowledge gained by creating an art piece based on their experience. He explained that at the end of the workshops in all zones, the best artworks would be selected for a national exhibition and competition. The concept, he said, is for zonal winners to have their art works displayed side by side with that of the master at the exhibition. Also, participants would be required to come with their parents or guardian for the national exhibition in Lagos.
A panel of judges will be selected from the art community to assess the various art works and select a winner from each of the six geo-political zones. Zonal winners will each receive prizes. A national winner will then be chosen from amongst the zonal winners. The Lagos exhibition of the winners’ works will hold between March 1 and 6, 2010 at Nike Art Centre, Lekki, Lagos. But announcement of the overall winner will be made on March 6.
The wider aim is for national winners from all international locations to compete for the African Upcoming Artist of the Year award at the continental level,” he added.
The overall winner in company of the guardian will be sponsored to visit
Marlborough House between March 29 and April 3, 2010 to view Ben Enwonwu and Chinwe Roy’s commissioned sculpture and painting of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Ben Enwonwu exemplifies artistic talent and Mirror the Master is keen to celebrate him in style and use him as a beacon of hope for the future generation of master artists.
‘Closure of African Writers Series lured me into publishing’
For 12 years, Ghanaian born Nana Ayebia Clarke, worked at the highly acclaimed Heinemann Publishers, (African and Caribbean Writers Series) UK as Submissions Editor, publishing and promoting prominent writers and Nobel Prize winning authors. In 2003, she founded Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited with her husband, David, to publish books that will open new spaces and bring fresh insights into African Caribbean life, culture and literature in a way that will enlighten, stimulate and entertain.
Ayebia who was guest at the recently concluded Garden City Literary Festival, Port Harcourt, spoke with Assistant Editor (Arts), OZOLUA UHAKHEME on the politics of publishing Black writers in the UK, the collapse of African Writers Series, the need to connect with African Diaspora among other topical issues affecting African languages.
How strategic is UK for a fresh insight into African Caribbean literature?
We put ourselves out there to tell the world what we have contributed to world knowledge. Nobody is going to do it for us and I can’t think of a better place to do it than from the interior capital of the United Kingdom.
How will you describe your years at Heinemann UK?
It was a very good finishing school. At least, it was one of the best finishing schools in the world. I mean Heinemann publishes high quality of works. Primarily, the world goes into education, as you know anybody who studies African literature any where in the world would have to read. I don’t know what to say, usually there are other ready upper secondary school, the Universities on the litearature courses, so we cant put anything out there without high quality but I think secondly, I was trained to look for work that have timeless quality because the African writer series is a Canon and just as Shakespeare and Dickens are the canons of English literature. So you find the Wole Soyinkas, China Achebes, Buchi Emecheta, J P Clark, all these people have been published in a series. Then recently you have the new writers coming like Okey Ndibe.
Learnt African Writers Series closed its door in 2002. What is the present position?
I heard they have sold the series to Penguin in South Africa. But they are not really doing anything new. That is why I started the idea of publishing because at the time the series closed I realised I had so many manuscripts. I asked my self what these writers would do when big publishing houses in UK don’t really invest in our writers.
What is your invention?
My intention is devoted to writing for Africa and the Caribbean. In fact, what I hope to do is to expand to the Black world so that we connect with our African Diasporas. If Africa is going to develop and take off we need the help, the connections of the African Diasporas. I don’t need to tell you what the presidency of Barrack Obama in US has done for the Black world. We feel proud even though we don’t live in America. We feel proud because a black man is now in the White House and now we need to connect with the African Diasporas as we have them in China, South America, and they are huge.
We all know the US is the biggest democracy and they are doing some fantastic works. So, we need to connect to that Diasporas to create power and also to have an intervention creation. And one of the most vital parts of that we have to do with education. That is, educating our people about their own awareness, roots and culture. You know the children we saw here were reading and as soon as they finished reading they want to go to work. They have been reading books made by Western authors from different cultures. And they believe every thing good comes from the West but those of us who have been educated believe that what we need is here and so we can take what we want from the West especially the good things.
I have benefited from most of the education and they put several pips on my shoulders. I read my way through the English practice and it was when I started reading my own writers that I felt it was like intravenous injection. I read English classics and I didn’t feel that connection. I appreciated it but they were describing words that were not familiar to me. But when I started reading my own African literature it was like they were giving me intravenous injection of knowledge. It was like this is what you want, where you come from, and you come from greatness so you mustn’t let any body put you down. As long as you believe that you come from greatness even the way you work and the way you handle yourself it will become the part and parcel of yourself
What is responsible for the apathy of publishers in the West against African writers?
You have to be aware and awake to the way western society has been educated to see us. You know it is in history books and we are slowly trying to change that tide. If you read Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s works, it is all around in his works. If you read How Europe Under-develop Africa, by Walter Rodney, you know why we are devalued in the eyes of the west. They see Africa as place where they come and take resources, not a place where they find talents. So, it is a historical thing, which we need to deal with and it takes a long time. What they do is that they take one writer and celebrate him everywhere as a trophy. For instance, there is Chimamanda Adichie, a brilliant writer. But they can’t love more than one of us at a time. They will be saying, ‘look at us we are celebrating African writer.’ Apart from that one writer, a hundred of Chimamandas are out there. They don’t really bother and that is what I am correcting with Ayebia.
I am not just interested in celebrating only one writer. I want to celebrate old good writers and who are making contributions to our knowledge base and this is because knowledge is power. If we don’t know about our own knowledge and we go out there to learn about somebody else knowledge, we are short changing ourselves because we have a lot to offer to the rest of the world.
So far, who are the writers on your stable?
I have published a collection of short stories and African lost stories, which was edited by Amata Edu. I have also published Ken Saro Wiwa’s book among others. We updated it and I am looking at three brand new writers at the moment. As I speak, am always looking for new talent because if we don’t nature the next generations of the Achebes and Soyinkas and the J.P Clark today, we will be sorry tomorrow. Specifically, my role is to bring to you new voices in Africa and the happening voices in Africa. I am very passionate about the fact that Africa needs to work for Africa and we need to connect to other African countries. That is why I am looking at having partnership with other publishers even though I am based in the West. I want to connect with African publishers who will publish and circulate in Africa while I will take it to the rest of the world.
When will these works be published?
They will be published early next year. From the reviews of the Zimbabwean writer that I have seen, people are saying it would be unbeatable because it is that good.
What kind of writings are you working on?
We are working on fiction, literature, autobiography. We have done our first collection of poetry and I want to talk to Professor J.P Clark. I don’t think you can call yourself a publisher until you publish poetry, short stories because the oral aspect of our languages is our strength.
Fiction and novel are European inventions and we have picked them and used. But we should show them that we can actually do better on a good day but I think we need to go back to our story telling traditions and use our modern tongues to get stories and poetries involve in that respect. In poetry, you have to be brief, you can’t just write because you want to write. Plays too are important and they are very important to our lives
I want to publish African books, make enough contributions of our younger generations so that we too have people who have achieved things. The West is not really going to celebrate them.
We have the first man in Kofi Annah as former secretary general of Commonwealth and we have Barrack Obama as US president. Next year Ayebia is starting a children programme. I write for children and I think that is the biggest challenge we have and I hope we can catch children young. And I wish we turn their minds to read about us and also have prized heritage. If you don’t do any thing now, when they are in primary and kindergarten, by the time they get to secondary school, it is probably too late. In secondary school, they are young and they are thinking of what to do, catch them long, teach them about the environment.
Do you pay advance to authors before publishing their books?
I do pay advance but then what kind of book? I can tell you it depends on the book. Every book is different, if I am publishing fiction it is different from poetry and it is different from autobiography and it is different from plays. Each book will have its own strategy and status so it is not possible for me to say I pay.
But when publishers take your money and publish your book, they won’t do any thing but leave your book on the shelves. We all see publishing as a business and a business is there to make profits. If you are not running it properly as a business that means the business is bound to fail. So, apart from doing a creative work, you also have business acumen. When you pick up a manuscript you are already thinking what it is the market value? How am I going to sell it? How many copies can I sell? Is it a kind of book that I intend to sell? So what I do as a publisher is to send manuscripts to lecturers for their opinion if it is the kind of book they are likely to recommend for literature classes. If they come back and say it is okay, I will publish it.
How can we improve publishing?
If you need to compete with the rest of the world, you need to raise the standard. It is as simple as that. If you have a story that is badly edited and badly typeset and the binding when you open it falls apart how can you sell the book , that is publishing in the world, if a book is not as good as yours that can still sell and that is the main criticism that is being said about us that our book is a substandard not just the book the editing, the typesetting, one of my biggest dream is to among the biggest publishing company in this continent no matter where it comes from, it might be my home town in Ghana. I have got to the stage which I don’t really care what I want to do is to be among the publishing house and train editors, typesetters, designers, all the processes that goes with publishing incidentally are also creating publishers I pay outside people I pay typesetter, I pay printers, I pay designers I paid editors, if I can train people here who can do it, it means I can employ people, am passing under the expertise, it took me twelve years to learn it and I was telling them in one of my sections yesterday if I was trained to be a doctor , I would have being twice a doctor. Twelve years is a long time but it takes time. Be prepared to undergo apprenticeship. It is not for a year or two. Something is happening because I see a lot of writers who are writing from the West. The world is now a global village, the world has become smaller because of the internet and all the new technologies that have been introduced. So, whether we like it or not western way of life is going to scale through.
What is your take on quality of language in manuscripts you have worked on?
I think this is where I come in. I am a stickler because I have been trained by Heinemann Publishers. When I was in Heinemann I published books that won prizes. So, how can you come down from there to publish something that is not good? And our new writers just want to make it because maybe they need money. But I think they have to be told they need to rely on African publishers who are working on very difficult situations.
We all know that Oxford is a place for publishers and all the publishers are there. Apparently, I am the only black publisher. Why not? If you can do it why can’t I? And that is what I am doing. I can do better than the foreign publishers can because I know the writers, I can identify with them and I have an affinity with them. And I know where they are coming from. So we need the support of the new writers and the need to understand that they don’t need to write to please the west. This is the main problem that I have. Their target audience is here and they are still writing for the West.
A day in time…and the people won
Political analysts, social scientists and historians will find the visual documentation of demonstrations that heralded the ruling of Appeal Court, Benin City, declaring Comrade Adams Oshiomhole Governor of Edo State on November 11, 2008, very useful reference materials. Ebiware Dotimi Okiy’s photo exhibition, A Day In Time: The People, The Comrade, tells the complete story in black and white, Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME reports
‘November 11, 2008 will forever remain one of the most incredible days in the history of the great Benin kingdom. On that monumental day, the presumed passive people of Benin City, the elite included, took to the streets in unprecedented fashion and style, reawakening the glorious return of the mighty gallant and prestigious people of Benin.’
Indeed, it was an unusual celebration that trailed the Appeal Court ruling that declared Comrade Adams Oshiomhole winner of the governorship election in Edo state. Thousands of broom-carrying demonstrators, motor-bike riders, market women, acrobats, students and horn blaring motorists over-ran major streets of Benin City, chanting victory songs.
All of these actions on the streets of the ancient Benin City did not go unrecorded. Amidst the madness, a graduate of Economics from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Ebiware Dotimi Okiy (one of the students of the famous Don Barber School in Lagos), dared the rampaging celebrants and the tight security to take vantage photographs that will be on exhibition at the Vichi Gate Hotel, Ihama Road, Benin City on October 24. Through his lens, the photographer captures variety of the scenes in black and white photographs for the solo exhibition, tagged; A Day In Time: The People, The Comrade.
The exhibits are in seven major segments namely; In the beginning, Brooms, Obama? Okada!, Ecstasy, Police Bomb Squad and The Comrade. Central to the elements of most of the photographs are people, vehicles, posters, banners and brooms. Sarcastically, there is a photograph in the collection that shows two men holding a torn and collapsed umbrella tucked under a huge broom, which speaks volume of the rivalry between the two major political opponents in the state. Also striking in the collection are posters and banners that carry messages like Comrade Governor: Yes we Can, and Edo State Obama.
However, the photographer does not see the collection in the main, as statement about politics but about the Edo State people and their culture of celebration. “I saw for the first time elites on the streets as everybody moves to town to join in the celebration with their big cars and jeeps. It was sheer madness. But everybody seems to be expressing their feelings from inside with little regards to political inclination. In fact, it was a strong message; victory for the people,” he said.
Ordinarily, one will expect that security officials will constitute obstacles to the expression of the peoples’ feelings. According to the photographer, though there was tight security, everybody had enough space to express themselves. ‘There was a shot I took standing on top of the police van,” he recalled.
Unlike most photo exhibitions, no work in this show will be for sale because it is an opportunity for other Nigerians to see what happened in Benin City on November 11, 2008. “I feel very fulfill holding the show and I am not going to sell any of the photographs. I chose the ancient city of Benin to host the exhibition because it is where the actions took place. Also, I want to use this show to encourage documentary photography in the city, according to Okiy, who runs a digital photography studio in Benin.
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Aina Onabolu, Akinola Lasekan, Ben Enwonwu, Solomon Wangboje and
Bruce Onobrakpeya are among early generations of top Nigerian artists. But for every passing year, there is an increasing gap between them and young Nigerians, especially within the visual art circle. This gap is what Access Bank Plc is closing with Mirror The Master, a holistic package aimed at developing young masters of tomorrow, reports Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME
Determined to fill the widening gap between Nigerian master artists and younger generation artists, Access Bank Plc has initiated the celebration of masters of today by developing the young masters of tomorrow through creative workshop and exhibition across the country.
The programme, Mirror the Master, which will be implemented by Kambari Arts, a UK based NGO, is a model structure in which young Nigerians are challenged to create piece of art works inspired by a renowned master artist, the late Ben Enwonwu. About 150 young artists between the ages of 9 and 16, will engage in creative art workshops and focus on the art work of the master, learn from them and use the experience to inspire their own creative art-piece. The pilot programme will flag off on Wednesday, October 14 through 16, at Osogbo, Osun State with renowned artist, Jimoh Buraimoh as facilitator for the zone. Textile artist, Nike Davis, is expected to man the Zaria zone between January 25 and 27, 2010, while El Dragg Okwoju facilitates the Benin zone from October 26 to 28 2009. Prof. of Sculpture, El Anatsui will be in charge of the Nsukka zone from January 18 till 20, 2010.
Briefing art writers in Lagos, the head, Corporate Social Responsibility, Access Bank Plc, Bolanle Babatunde said the bank came up with the programme because of the increasing gap between art masters and younger generation Nigerians adding that it would be focusing on exposing younger ones while celebrating the masters. “We have a strong vision to make a difference by developing the art masters of tomorrow. These young ones will be exposed to the Masters and gain inspiration from the works of the Masters who are celebrated from time to time,” she assured, disclosing that the bank has enlisted the advice, guidance and support of the Ben Enwonwu Foundation. Enwonwu’s son Oliver, CEO of the foundation said: “We are pleased to support the programme and we have no doubt that this initiative would go far in encouraging creativity in our youth and ensuring that they become the true Masters of tomorrow.”
The director, Kambari Arts, Chima Ezeilo, explained that the final art competition and exhibition would be conducted at the national level, though Access Bank aimed at implementing the pilot model in all of the bank’s countries of operation in Africa.
“The aim is for the programme to run on a year by year basis. Each year, a renowned living master artist or representative will be selected for study. The selected artist’s work will be reviewed and young participants will visit the artist’s gallery/ studio workspace and interact with the artist/ representative to get a better understanding of the motivation that inspires his/her work. Participants will then endeavour to create their own work, inspired by the master,” Ezeilo said.
He stressed that at the zonal workshops, participants would take part in sessions that would inspire their creative abilities and that selected master/ representative of the master would participate in these workshops in order to enable the students have direct contact with the artist that is being studied.
According to him, the two days intensive workshops would provide opportunities for participants to portray their artistic expression and express the knowledge gained by creating an art piece based on their experience. He explained that at the end of the workshops in all zones, the best artworks would be selected for a national exhibition and competition. The concept, he said, is for zonal winners to have their art works displayed side by side with that of the master at the exhibition. Also, participants would be required to come with their parents or guardian for the national exhibition in Lagos.
A panel of judges will be selected from the art community to assess the various art works and select a winner from each of the six geo-political zones. Zonal winners will each receive prizes. A national winner will then be chosen from amongst the zonal winners. The Lagos exhibition of the winners’ works will hold between March 1 and 6, 2010 at Nike Art Centre, Lekki, Lagos. But announcement of the overall winner will be made on March 6.
The wider aim is for national winners from all international locations to compete for the African Upcoming Artist of the Year award at the continental level,” he added.
The overall winner in company of the guardian will be sponsored to visit
Marlborough House between March 29 and April 3, 2010 to view Ben Enwonwu and Chinwe Roy’s commissioned sculpture and painting of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Ben Enwonwu exemplifies artistic talent and Mirror the Master is keen to celebrate him in style and use him as a beacon of hope for the future generation of master artists.
‘Closure of African Writers Series lured me into publishing’
For 12 years, Ghanaian born Nana Ayebia Clarke, worked at the highly acclaimed Heinemann Publishers, (African and Caribbean Writers Series) UK as Submissions Editor, publishing and promoting prominent writers and Nobel Prize winning authors. In 2003, she founded Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited with her husband, David, to publish books that will open new spaces and bring fresh insights into African Caribbean life, culture and literature in a way that will enlighten, stimulate and entertain.
Ayebia who was guest at the recently concluded Garden City Literary Festival, Port Harcourt, spoke with Assistant Editor (Arts), OZOLUA UHAKHEME on the politics of publishing Black writers in the UK, the collapse of African Writers Series, the need to connect with African Diaspora among other topical issues affecting African languages.
How strategic is UK for a fresh insight into African Caribbean literature?
We put ourselves out there to tell the world what we have contributed to world knowledge. Nobody is going to do it for us and I can’t think of a better place to do it than from the interior capital of the United Kingdom.
How will you describe your years at Heinemann UK?
It was a very good finishing school. At least, it was one of the best finishing schools in the world. I mean Heinemann publishes high quality of works. Primarily, the world goes into education, as you know anybody who studies African literature any where in the world would have to read. I don’t know what to say, usually there are other ready upper secondary school, the Universities on the litearature courses, so we cant put anything out there without high quality but I think secondly, I was trained to look for work that have timeless quality because the African writer series is a Canon and just as Shakespeare and Dickens are the canons of English literature. So you find the Wole Soyinkas, China Achebes, Buchi Emecheta, J P Clark, all these people have been published in a series. Then recently you have the new writers coming like Okey Ndibe.
Learnt African Writers Series closed its door in 2002. What is the present position?
I heard they have sold the series to Penguin in South Africa. But they are not really doing anything new. That is why I started the idea of publishing because at the time the series closed I realised I had so many manuscripts. I asked my self what these writers would do when big publishing houses in UK don’t really invest in our writers.
What is your invention?
My intention is devoted to writing for Africa and the Caribbean. In fact, what I hope to do is to expand to the Black world so that we connect with our African Diasporas. If Africa is going to develop and take off we need the help, the connections of the African Diasporas. I don’t need to tell you what the presidency of Barrack Obama in US has done for the Black world. We feel proud even though we don’t live in America. We feel proud because a black man is now in the White House and now we need to connect with the African Diasporas as we have them in China, South America, and they are huge.
We all know the US is the biggest democracy and they are doing some fantastic works. So, we need to connect to that Diasporas to create power and also to have an intervention creation. And one of the most vital parts of that we have to do with education. That is, educating our people about their own awareness, roots and culture. You know the children we saw here were reading and as soon as they finished reading they want to go to work. They have been reading books made by Western authors from different cultures. And they believe every thing good comes from the West but those of us who have been educated believe that what we need is here and so we can take what we want from the West especially the good things.
I have benefited from most of the education and they put several pips on my shoulders. I read my way through the English practice and it was when I started reading my own writers that I felt it was like intravenous injection. I read English classics and I didn’t feel that connection. I appreciated it but they were describing words that were not familiar to me. But when I started reading my own African literature it was like they were giving me intravenous injection of knowledge. It was like this is what you want, where you come from, and you come from greatness so you mustn’t let any body put you down. As long as you believe that you come from greatness even the way you work and the way you handle yourself it will become the part and parcel of yourself
What is responsible for the apathy of publishers in the West against African writers?
You have to be aware and awake to the way western society has been educated to see us. You know it is in history books and we are slowly trying to change that tide. If you read Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s works, it is all around in his works. If you read How Europe Under-develop Africa, by Walter Rodney, you know why we are devalued in the eyes of the west. They see Africa as place where they come and take resources, not a place where they find talents. So, it is a historical thing, which we need to deal with and it takes a long time. What they do is that they take one writer and celebrate him everywhere as a trophy. For instance, there is Chimamanda Adichie, a brilliant writer. But they can’t love more than one of us at a time. They will be saying, ‘look at us we are celebrating African writer.’ Apart from that one writer, a hundred of Chimamandas are out there. They don’t really bother and that is what I am correcting with Ayebia.
I am not just interested in celebrating only one writer. I want to celebrate old good writers and who are making contributions to our knowledge base and this is because knowledge is power. If we don’t know about our own knowledge and we go out there to learn about somebody else knowledge, we are short changing ourselves because we have a lot to offer to the rest of the world.
So far, who are the writers on your stable?
I have published a collection of short stories and African lost stories, which was edited by Amata Edu. I have also published Ken Saro Wiwa’s book among others. We updated it and I am looking at three brand new writers at the moment. As I speak, am always looking for new talent because if we don’t nature the next generations of the Achebes and Soyinkas and the J.P Clark today, we will be sorry tomorrow. Specifically, my role is to bring to you new voices in Africa and the happening voices in Africa. I am very passionate about the fact that Africa needs to work for Africa and we need to connect to other African countries. That is why I am looking at having partnership with other publishers even though I am based in the West. I want to connect with African publishers who will publish and circulate in Africa while I will take it to the rest of the world.
When will these works be published?
They will be published early next year. From the reviews of the Zimbabwean writer that I have seen, people are saying it would be unbeatable because it is that good.
What kind of writings are you working on?
We are working on fiction, literature, autobiography. We have done our first collection of poetry and I want to talk to Professor J.P Clark. I don’t think you can call yourself a publisher until you publish poetry, short stories because the oral aspect of our languages is our strength.
Fiction and novel are European inventions and we have picked them and used. But we should show them that we can actually do better on a good day but I think we need to go back to our story telling traditions and use our modern tongues to get stories and poetries involve in that respect. In poetry, you have to be brief, you can’t just write because you want to write. Plays too are important and they are very important to our lives
I want to publish African books, make enough contributions of our younger generations so that we too have people who have achieved things. The West is not really going to celebrate them.
We have the first man in Kofi Annah as former secretary general of Commonwealth and we have Barrack Obama as US president. Next year Ayebia is starting a children programme. I write for children and I think that is the biggest challenge we have and I hope we can catch children young. And I wish we turn their minds to read about us and also have prized heritage. If you don’t do any thing now, when they are in primary and kindergarten, by the time they get to secondary school, it is probably too late. In secondary school, they are young and they are thinking of what to do, catch them long, teach them about the environment.
Do you pay advance to authors before publishing their books?
I do pay advance but then what kind of book? I can tell you it depends on the book. Every book is different, if I am publishing fiction it is different from poetry and it is different from autobiography and it is different from plays. Each book will have its own strategy and status so it is not possible for me to say I pay.
But when publishers take your money and publish your book, they won’t do any thing but leave your book on the shelves. We all see publishing as a business and a business is there to make profits. If you are not running it properly as a business that means the business is bound to fail. So, apart from doing a creative work, you also have business acumen. When you pick up a manuscript you are already thinking what it is the market value? How am I going to sell it? How many copies can I sell? Is it a kind of book that I intend to sell? So what I do as a publisher is to send manuscripts to lecturers for their opinion if it is the kind of book they are likely to recommend for literature classes. If they come back and say it is okay, I will publish it.
How can we improve publishing?
If you need to compete with the rest of the world, you need to raise the standard. It is as simple as that. If you have a story that is badly edited and badly typeset and the binding when you open it falls apart how can you sell the book , that is publishing in the world, if a book is not as good as yours that can still sell and that is the main criticism that is being said about us that our book is a substandard not just the book the editing, the typesetting, one of my biggest dream is to among the biggest publishing company in this continent no matter where it comes from, it might be my home town in Ghana. I have got to the stage which I don’t really care what I want to do is to be among the publishing house and train editors, typesetters, designers, all the processes that goes with publishing incidentally are also creating publishers I pay outside people I pay typesetter, I pay printers, I pay designers I paid editors, if I can train people here who can do it, it means I can employ people, am passing under the expertise, it took me twelve years to learn it and I was telling them in one of my sections yesterday if I was trained to be a doctor , I would have being twice a doctor. Twelve years is a long time but it takes time. Be prepared to undergo apprenticeship. It is not for a year or two. Something is happening because I see a lot of writers who are writing from the West. The world is now a global village, the world has become smaller because of the internet and all the new technologies that have been introduced. So, whether we like it or not western way of life is going to scale through.
What is your take on quality of language in manuscripts you have worked on?
I think this is where I come in. I am a stickler because I have been trained by Heinemann Publishers. When I was in Heinemann I published books that won prizes. So, how can you come down from there to publish something that is not good? And our new writers just want to make it because maybe they need money. But I think they have to be told they need to rely on African publishers who are working on very difficult situations.
We all know that Oxford is a place for publishers and all the publishers are there. Apparently, I am the only black publisher. Why not? If you can do it why can’t I? And that is what I am doing. I can do better than the foreign publishers can because I know the writers, I can identify with them and I have an affinity with them. And I know where they are coming from. So we need the support of the new writers and the need to understand that they don’t need to write to please the west. This is the main problem that I have. Their target audience is here and they are still writing for the West.
A day in time…and the people won
Political analysts, social scientists and historians will find the visual documentation of demonstrations that heralded the ruling of Appeal Court, Benin City, declaring Comrade Adams Oshiomhole Governor of Edo State on November 11, 2008, very useful reference materials. Ebiware Dotimi Okiy’s photo exhibition, A Day In Time: The People, The Comrade, tells the complete story in black and white, Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME reports
‘November 11, 2008 will forever remain one of the most incredible days in the history of the great Benin kingdom. On that monumental day, the presumed passive people of Benin City, the elite included, took to the streets in unprecedented fashion and style, reawakening the glorious return of the mighty gallant and prestigious people of Benin.’
Indeed, it was an unusual celebration that trailed the Appeal Court ruling that declared Comrade Adams Oshiomhole winner of the governorship election in Edo state. Thousands of broom-carrying demonstrators, motor-bike riders, market women, acrobats, students and horn blaring motorists over-ran major streets of Benin City, chanting victory songs.
All of these actions on the streets of the ancient Benin City did not go unrecorded. Amidst the madness, a graduate of Economics from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Ebiware Dotimi Okiy (one of the students of the famous Don Barber School in Lagos), dared the rampaging celebrants and the tight security to take vantage photographs that will be on exhibition at the Vichi Gate Hotel, Ihama Road, Benin City on October 24. Through his lens, the photographer captures variety of the scenes in black and white photographs for the solo exhibition, tagged; A Day In Time: The People, The Comrade.
The exhibits are in seven major segments namely; In the beginning, Brooms, Obama? Okada!, Ecstasy, Police Bomb Squad and The Comrade. Central to the elements of most of the photographs are people, vehicles, posters, banners and brooms. Sarcastically, there is a photograph in the collection that shows two men holding a torn and collapsed umbrella tucked under a huge broom, which speaks volume of the rivalry between the two major political opponents in the state. Also striking in the collection are posters and banners that carry messages like Comrade Governor: Yes we Can, and Edo State Obama.
However, the photographer does not see the collection in the main, as statement about politics but about the Edo State people and their culture of celebration. “I saw for the first time elites on the streets as everybody moves to town to join in the celebration with their big cars and jeeps. It was sheer madness. But everybody seems to be expressing their feelings from inside with little regards to political inclination. In fact, it was a strong message; victory for the people,” he said.
Ordinarily, one will expect that security officials will constitute obstacles to the expression of the peoples’ feelings. According to the photographer, though there was tight security, everybody had enough space to express themselves. ‘There was a shot I took standing on top of the police van,” he recalled.
Unlike most photo exhibitions, no work in this show will be for sale because it is an opportunity for other Nigerians to see what happened in Benin City on November 11, 2008. “I feel very fulfill holding the show and I am not going to sell any of the photographs. I chose the ancient city of Benin to host the exhibition because it is where the actions took place. Also, I want to use this show to encourage documentary photography in the city, according to Okiy, who runs a digital photography studio in Benin.
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Mirror The Master: Stimulating artistic skills of youths
Aina Onabolu, Akinola Lasekan, Ben Enwonwu, Solomon Wangboje and
Bruce Onobrakpeya are among early generations of top Nigerian artists. But for every passing year, there is an increasing gap between them and young Nigerians, especially within the visual art circle. This gap is what Access Bank Plc is closing with Mirror The Master, a holistic package aimed at developing young masters of tomorrow, reports Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME
Determined to fill the widening gap between Nigerian master artists and younger generation artists, Access Bank Plc has initiated the celebration of masters of today by developing the young masters of tomorrow through creative workshop and exhibition across the country.
The programme, Mirror the Master, which will be implemented by Kambari Arts, a UK based NGO, is a model structure in which young Nigerians are challenged to create piece of art works inspired by a renowned master artist, the late Ben Enwonwu. About 150 young artists between the ages of 9 and 16, will engage in creative art workshops and focus on the art work of the master, learn from them and use the experience to inspire their own creative art-piece. The pilot programme will flag off on Wednesday, October 14 through 16, at Osogbo, Osun State with renowned artist, Jimoh Buraimoh as facilitator for the zone. Textile artist, Nike Davis, is expected to man the Zaria zone between January 25 and 27, 2010, while El Dragg Okwoju facilitates the Benin zone from October 26 to 28 2009. Prof. of Sculpture, El Anatsui will be in charge of the Nsukka zone from January 18 till 20, 2010.
Briefing art writers in Lagos, the head, Corporate Social Responsibility, Access Bank Plc, Bolanle Babatunde said the bank came up with the programme because of the increasing gap between art masters and younger generation Nigerians adding that it would be focusing on exposing younger ones while celebrating the masters. “We have a strong vision to make a difference by developing the art masters of tomorrow. These young ones will be exposed to the Masters and gain inspiration from the works of the Masters who are celebrated from time to time,” she assured, disclosing that the bank has enlisted the advice, guidance and support of the Ben Enwonwu Foundation. Enwonwu’s son Oliver, CEO of the foundation said: “We are pleased to support the programme and we have no doubt that this initiative would go far in encouraging creativity in our youth and ensuring that they become the true Masters of tomorrow.”
The director, Kambari Arts, Chima Ezeilo, explained that the final art competition and exhibition would be conducted at the national level, though Access Bank aimed at implementing the pilot model in all of the bank’s countries of operation in Africa.
“The aim is for the programme to run on a year by year basis. Each year, a renowned living master artist or representative will be selected for study. The selected artist’s work will be reviewed and young participants will visit the artist’s gallery/ studio workspace and interact with the artist/ representative to get a better understanding of the motivation that inspires his/her work. Participants will then endeavour to create their own work, inspired by the master,” Ezeilo said.
He stressed that at the zonal workshops, participants would take part in sessions that would inspire their creative abilities and that selected master/ representative of the master would participate in these workshops in order to enable the students have direct contact with the artist that is being studied.
According to him, the two days intensive workshops would provide opportunities for participants to portray their artistic expression and express the knowledge gained by creating an art piece based on their experience. He explained that at the end of the workshops in all zones, the best artworks would be selected for a national exhibition and competition. The concept, he said, is for zonal winners to have their art works displayed side by side with that of the master at the exhibition. Also, participants would be required to come with their parents or guardian for the national exhibition in Lagos.
A panel of judges will be selected from the art community to assess the various art works and select a winner from each of the six geo-political zones. Zonal winners will each receive prizes. A national winner will then be chosen from amongst the zonal winners. The Lagos exhibition of the winners’ works will hold between March 1 and 6, 2010 at Nike Art Centre, Lekki, Lagos. But announcement of the overall winner will be made on March 6.
The wider aim is for national winners from all international locations to compete for the African Upcoming Artist of the Year award at the continental level,” he added.
The overall winner in company of the guardian will be sponsored to visit
Marlborough House between March 29 and April 3, 2010 to view Ben Enwonwu and Chinwe Roy’s commissioned sculpture and painting of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Ben Enwonwu exemplifies artistic talent and Mirror the Master is keen to celebrate him in style and use him as a beacon of hope for the future generation of master artists.
‘Closure of African Writers Series lured me into publishing’
For 12 years, Ghanaian born Nana Ayebia Clarke, worked at the highly acclaimed Heinemann Publishers, (African and Caribbean Writers Series) UK as Submissions Editor, publishing and promoting prominent writers and Nobel Prize winning authors. In 2003, she founded Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited with her husband, David, to publish books that will open new spaces and bring fresh insights into African Caribbean life, culture and literature in a way that will enlighten, stimulate and entertain.
Ayebia who was guest at the recently concluded Garden City Literary Festival, Port Harcourt, spoke with Assistant Editor (Arts), OZOLUA UHAKHEME on the politics of publishing Black writers in the UK, the collapse of African Writers Series, the need to connect with African Diaspora among other topical issues affecting African languages.
How strategic is UK for a fresh insight into African Caribbean literature?
We put ourselves out there to tell the world what we have contributed to world knowledge. Nobody is going to do it for us and I can’t think of a better place to do it than from the interior capital of the United Kingdom.
How will you describe your years at Heinemann UK?
It was a very good finishing school. At least, it was one of the best finishing schools in the world. I mean Heinemann publishes high quality of works. Primarily, the world goes into education, as you know anybody who studies African literature any where in the world would have to read. I don’t know what to say, usually there are other ready upper secondary school, the Universities on the litearature courses, so we cant put anything out there without high quality but I think secondly, I was trained to look for work that have timeless quality because the African writer series is a Canon and just as Shakespeare and Dickens are the canons of English literature. So you find the Wole Soyinkas, China Achebes, Buchi Emecheta, J P Clark, all these people have been published in a series. Then recently you have the new writers coming like Okey Ndibe.
Learnt African Writers Series closed its door in 2002. What is the present position?
I heard they have sold the series to Penguin in South Africa. But they are not really doing anything new. That is why I started the idea of publishing because at the time the series closed I realised I had so many manuscripts. I asked my self what these writers would do when big publishing houses in UK don’t really invest in our writers.
What is your invention?
My intention is devoted to writing for Africa and the Caribbean. In fact, what I hope to do is to expand to the Black world so that we connect with our African Diasporas. If Africa is going to develop and take off we need the help, the connections of the African Diasporas. I don’t need to tell you what the presidency of Barrack Obama in US has done for the Black world. We feel proud even though we don’t live in America. We feel proud because a black man is now in the White House and now we need to connect with the African Diasporas as we have them in China, South America, and they are huge.
We all know the US is the biggest democracy and they are doing some fantastic works. So, we need to connect to that Diasporas to create power and also to have an intervention creation. And one of the most vital parts of that we have to do with education. That is, educating our people about their own awareness, roots and culture. You know the children we saw here were reading and as soon as they finished reading they want to go to work. They have been reading books made by Western authors from different cultures. And they believe every thing good comes from the West but those of us who have been educated believe that what we need is here and so we can take what we want from the West especially the good things.
I have benefited from most of the education and they put several pips on my shoulders. I read my way through the English practice and it was when I started reading my own writers that I felt it was like intravenous injection. I read English classics and I didn’t feel that connection. I appreciated it but they were describing words that were not familiar to me. But when I started reading my own African literature it was like they were giving me intravenous injection of knowledge. It was like this is what you want, where you come from, and you come from greatness so you mustn’t let any body put you down. As long as you believe that you come from greatness even the way you work and the way you handle yourself it will become the part and parcel of yourself
What is responsible for the apathy of publishers in the West against African writers?
You have to be aware and awake to the way western society has been educated to see us. You know it is in history books and we are slowly trying to change that tide. If you read Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s works, it is all around in his works. If you read How Europe Under-develop Africa, by Walter Rodney, you know why we are devalued in the eyes of the west. They see Africa as place where they come and take resources, not a place where they find talents. So, it is a historical thing, which we need to deal with and it takes a long time. What they do is that they take one writer and celebrate him everywhere as a trophy. For instance, there is Chimamanda Adichie, a brilliant writer. But they can’t love more than one of us at a time. They will be saying, ‘look at us we are celebrating African writer.’ Apart from that one writer, a hundred of Chimamandas are out there. They don’t really bother and that is what I am correcting with Ayebia.
I am not just interested in celebrating only one writer. I want to celebrate old good writers and who are making contributions to our knowledge base and this is because knowledge is power. If we don’t know about our own knowledge and we go out there to learn about somebody else knowledge, we are short changing ourselves because we have a lot to offer to the rest of the world.
So far, who are the writers on your stable?
I have published a collection of short stories and African lost stories, which was edited by Amata Edu. I have also published Ken Saro Wiwa’s book among others. We updated it and I am looking at three brand new writers at the moment. As I speak, am always looking for new talent because if we don’t nature the next generations of the Achebes and Soyinkas and the J.P Clark today, we will be sorry tomorrow. Specifically, my role is to bring to you new voices in Africa and the happening voices in Africa. I am very passionate about the fact that Africa needs to work for Africa and we need to connect to other African countries. That is why I am looking at having partnership with other publishers even though I am based in the West. I want to connect with African publishers who will publish and circulate in Africa while I will take it to the rest of the world.
When will these works be published?
They will be published early next year. From the reviews of the Zimbabwean writer that I have seen, people are saying it would be unbeatable because it is that good.
What kind of writings are you working on?
We are working on fiction, literature, autobiography. We have done our first collection of poetry and I want to talk to Professor J.P Clark. I don’t think you can call yourself a publisher until you publish poetry, short stories because the oral aspect of our languages is our strength.
Fiction and novel are European inventions and we have picked them and used. But we should show them that we can actually do better on a good day but I think we need to go back to our story telling traditions and use our modern tongues to get stories and poetries involve in that respect. In poetry, you have to be brief, you can’t just write because you want to write. Plays too are important and they are very important to our lives
I want to publish African books, make enough contributions of our younger generations so that we too have people who have achieved things. The West is not really going to celebrate them.
We have the first man in Kofi Annah as former secretary general of Commonwealth and we have Barrack Obama as US president. Next year Ayebia is starting a children programme. I write for children and I think that is the biggest challenge we have and I hope we can catch children young. And I wish we turn their minds to read about us and also have prized heritage. If you don’t do any thing now, when they are in primary and kindergarten, by the time they get to secondary school, it is probably too late. In secondary school, they are young and they are thinking of what to do, catch them long, teach them about the environment.
Do you pay advance to authors before publishing their books?
I do pay advance but then what kind of book? I can tell you it depends on the book. Every book is different, if I am publishing fiction it is different from poetry and it is different from autobiography and it is different from plays. Each book will have its own strategy and status so it is not possible for me to say I pay.
But when publishers take your money and publish your book, they won’t do any thing but leave your book on the shelves. We all see publishing as a business and a business is there to make profits. If you are not running it properly as a business that means the business is bound to fail. So, apart from doing a creative work, you also have business acumen. When you pick up a manuscript you are already thinking what it is the market value? How am I going to sell it? How many copies can I sell? Is it a kind of book that I intend to sell? So what I do as a publisher is to send manuscripts to lecturers for their opinion if it is the kind of book they are likely to recommend for literature classes. If they come back and say it is okay, I will publish it.
How can we improve publishing?
If you need to compete with the rest of the world, you need to raise the standard. It is as simple as that. If you have a story that is badly edited and badly typeset and the binding when you open it falls apart how can you sell the book , that is publishing in the world, if a book is not as good as yours that can still sell and that is the main criticism that is being said about us that our book is a substandard not just the book the editing, the typesetting, one of my biggest dream is to among the biggest publishing company in this continent no matter where it comes from, it might be my home town in Ghana. I have got to the stage which I don’t really care what I want to do is to be among the publishing house and train editors, typesetters, designers, all the processes that goes with publishing incidentally are also creating publishers I pay outside people I pay typesetter, I pay printers, I pay designers I paid editors, if I can train people here who can do it, it means I can employ people, am passing under the expertise, it took me twelve years to learn it and I was telling them in one of my sections yesterday if I was trained to be a doctor , I would have being twice a doctor. Twelve years is a long time but it takes time. Be prepared to undergo apprenticeship. It is not for a year or two. Something is happening because I see a lot of writers who are writing from the West. The world is now a global village, the world has become smaller because of the internet and all the new technologies that have been introduced. So, whether we like it or not western way of life is going to scale through.
What is your take on quality of language in manuscripts you have worked on?
I think this is where I come in. I am a stickler because I have been trained by Heinemann Publishers. When I was in Heinemann I published books that won prizes. So, how can you come down from there to publish something that is not good? And our new writers just want to make it because maybe they need money. But I think they have to be told they need to rely on African publishers who are working on very difficult situations.
We all know that Oxford is a place for publishers and all the publishers are there. Apparently, I am the only black publisher. Why not? If you can do it why can’t I? And that is what I am doing. I can do better than the foreign publishers can because I know the writers, I can identify with them and I have an affinity with them. And I know where they are coming from. So we need the support of the new writers and the need to understand that they don’t need to write to please the west. This is the main problem that I have. Their target audience is here and they are still writing for the West.
A day in time…and the people won
Political analysts, social scientists and historians will find the visual documentation of demonstrations that heralded the ruling of Appeal Court, Benin City, declaring Comrade Adams Oshiomhole Governor of Edo State on November 11, 2008, very useful reference materials. Ebiware Dotimi Okiy’s photo exhibition, A Day In Time: The People, The Comrade, tells the complete story in black and white, Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME reports
‘November 11, 2008 will forever remain one of the most incredible days in the history of the great Benin kingdom. On that monumental day, the presumed passive people of Benin City, the elite included, took to the streets in unprecedented fashion and style, reawakening the glorious return of the mighty gallant and prestigious people of Benin.’
Indeed, it was an unusual celebration that trailed the Appeal Court ruling that declared Comrade Adams Oshiomhole winner of the governorship election in Edo state. Thousands of broom-carrying demonstrators, motor-bike riders, market women, acrobats, students and horn blaring motorists over-ran major streets of Benin City, chanting victory songs.
All of these actions on the streets of the ancient Benin City did not go unrecorded. Amidst the madness, a graduate of Economics from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Ebiware Dotimi Okiy (one of the students of the famous Don Barber School in Lagos), dared the rampaging celebrants and the tight security to take vantage photographs that will be on exhibition at the Vichi Gate Hotel, Ihama Road, Benin City on October 24. Through his lens, the photographer captures variety of the scenes in black and white photographs for the solo exhibition, tagged; A Day In Time: The People, The Comrade.
The exhibits are in seven major segments namely; In the beginning, Brooms, Obama? Okada!, Ecstasy, Police Bomb Squad and The Comrade. Central to the elements of most of the photographs are people, vehicles, posters, banners and brooms. Sarcastically, there is a photograph in the collection that shows two men holding a torn and collapsed umbrella tucked under a huge broom, which speaks volume of the rivalry between the two major political opponents in the state. Also striking in the collection are posters and banners that carry messages like Comrade Governor: Yes we Can, and Edo State Obama.
However, the photographer does not see the collection in the main, as statement about politics but about the Edo State people and their culture of celebration. “I saw for the first time elites on the streets as everybody moves to town to join in the celebration with their big cars and jeeps. It was sheer madness. But everybody seems to be expressing their feelings from inside with little regards to political inclination. In fact, it was a strong message; victory for the people,” he said.
Ordinarily, one will expect that security officials will constitute obstacles to the expression of the peoples’ feelings. According to the photographer, though there was tight security, everybody had enough space to express themselves. ‘There was a shot I took standing on top of the police van,” he recalled.
Unlike most photo exhibitions, no work in this show will be for sale because it is an opportunity for other Nigerians to see what happened in Benin City on November 11, 2008. “I feel very fulfill holding the show and I am not going to sell any of the photographs. I chose the ancient city of Benin to host the exhibition because it is where the actions took place. Also, I want to use this show to encourage documentary photography in the city, according to Okiy, who runs a digital photography studio in Benin.
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Aina Onabolu, Akinola Lasekan, Ben Enwonwu, Solomon Wangboje and
Bruce Onobrakpeya are among early generations of top Nigerian artists. But for every passing year, there is an increasing gap between them and young Nigerians, especially within the visual art circle. This gap is what Access Bank Plc is closing with Mirror The Master, a holistic package aimed at developing young masters of tomorrow, reports Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME
Determined to fill the widening gap between Nigerian master artists and younger generation artists, Access Bank Plc has initiated the celebration of masters of today by developing the young masters of tomorrow through creative workshop and exhibition across the country.
The programme, Mirror the Master, which will be implemented by Kambari Arts, a UK based NGO, is a model structure in which young Nigerians are challenged to create piece of art works inspired by a renowned master artist, the late Ben Enwonwu. About 150 young artists between the ages of 9 and 16, will engage in creative art workshops and focus on the art work of the master, learn from them and use the experience to inspire their own creative art-piece. The pilot programme will flag off on Wednesday, October 14 through 16, at Osogbo, Osun State with renowned artist, Jimoh Buraimoh as facilitator for the zone. Textile artist, Nike Davis, is expected to man the Zaria zone between January 25 and 27, 2010, while El Dragg Okwoju facilitates the Benin zone from October 26 to 28 2009. Prof. of Sculpture, El Anatsui will be in charge of the Nsukka zone from January 18 till 20, 2010.
Briefing art writers in Lagos, the head, Corporate Social Responsibility, Access Bank Plc, Bolanle Babatunde said the bank came up with the programme because of the increasing gap between art masters and younger generation Nigerians adding that it would be focusing on exposing younger ones while celebrating the masters. “We have a strong vision to make a difference by developing the art masters of tomorrow. These young ones will be exposed to the Masters and gain inspiration from the works of the Masters who are celebrated from time to time,” she assured, disclosing that the bank has enlisted the advice, guidance and support of the Ben Enwonwu Foundation. Enwonwu’s son Oliver, CEO of the foundation said: “We are pleased to support the programme and we have no doubt that this initiative would go far in encouraging creativity in our youth and ensuring that they become the true Masters of tomorrow.”
The director, Kambari Arts, Chima Ezeilo, explained that the final art competition and exhibition would be conducted at the national level, though Access Bank aimed at implementing the pilot model in all of the bank’s countries of operation in Africa.
“The aim is for the programme to run on a year by year basis. Each year, a renowned living master artist or representative will be selected for study. The selected artist’s work will be reviewed and young participants will visit the artist’s gallery/ studio workspace and interact with the artist/ representative to get a better understanding of the motivation that inspires his/her work. Participants will then endeavour to create their own work, inspired by the master,” Ezeilo said.
He stressed that at the zonal workshops, participants would take part in sessions that would inspire their creative abilities and that selected master/ representative of the master would participate in these workshops in order to enable the students have direct contact with the artist that is being studied.
According to him, the two days intensive workshops would provide opportunities for participants to portray their artistic expression and express the knowledge gained by creating an art piece based on their experience. He explained that at the end of the workshops in all zones, the best artworks would be selected for a national exhibition and competition. The concept, he said, is for zonal winners to have their art works displayed side by side with that of the master at the exhibition. Also, participants would be required to come with their parents or guardian for the national exhibition in Lagos.
A panel of judges will be selected from the art community to assess the various art works and select a winner from each of the six geo-political zones. Zonal winners will each receive prizes. A national winner will then be chosen from amongst the zonal winners. The Lagos exhibition of the winners’ works will hold between March 1 and 6, 2010 at Nike Art Centre, Lekki, Lagos. But announcement of the overall winner will be made on March 6.
The wider aim is for national winners from all international locations to compete for the African Upcoming Artist of the Year award at the continental level,” he added.
The overall winner in company of the guardian will be sponsored to visit
Marlborough House between March 29 and April 3, 2010 to view Ben Enwonwu and Chinwe Roy’s commissioned sculpture and painting of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Ben Enwonwu exemplifies artistic talent and Mirror the Master is keen to celebrate him in style and use him as a beacon of hope for the future generation of master artists.
‘Closure of African Writers Series lured me into publishing’
For 12 years, Ghanaian born Nana Ayebia Clarke, worked at the highly acclaimed Heinemann Publishers, (African and Caribbean Writers Series) UK as Submissions Editor, publishing and promoting prominent writers and Nobel Prize winning authors. In 2003, she founded Ayebia Clarke Publishing Limited with her husband, David, to publish books that will open new spaces and bring fresh insights into African Caribbean life, culture and literature in a way that will enlighten, stimulate and entertain.
Ayebia who was guest at the recently concluded Garden City Literary Festival, Port Harcourt, spoke with Assistant Editor (Arts), OZOLUA UHAKHEME on the politics of publishing Black writers in the UK, the collapse of African Writers Series, the need to connect with African Diaspora among other topical issues affecting African languages.
How strategic is UK for a fresh insight into African Caribbean literature?
We put ourselves out there to tell the world what we have contributed to world knowledge. Nobody is going to do it for us and I can’t think of a better place to do it than from the interior capital of the United Kingdom.
How will you describe your years at Heinemann UK?
It was a very good finishing school. At least, it was one of the best finishing schools in the world. I mean Heinemann publishes high quality of works. Primarily, the world goes into education, as you know anybody who studies African literature any where in the world would have to read. I don’t know what to say, usually there are other ready upper secondary school, the Universities on the litearature courses, so we cant put anything out there without high quality but I think secondly, I was trained to look for work that have timeless quality because the African writer series is a Canon and just as Shakespeare and Dickens are the canons of English literature. So you find the Wole Soyinkas, China Achebes, Buchi Emecheta, J P Clark, all these people have been published in a series. Then recently you have the new writers coming like Okey Ndibe.
Learnt African Writers Series closed its door in 2002. What is the present position?
I heard they have sold the series to Penguin in South Africa. But they are not really doing anything new. That is why I started the idea of publishing because at the time the series closed I realised I had so many manuscripts. I asked my self what these writers would do when big publishing houses in UK don’t really invest in our writers.
What is your invention?
My intention is devoted to writing for Africa and the Caribbean. In fact, what I hope to do is to expand to the Black world so that we connect with our African Diasporas. If Africa is going to develop and take off we need the help, the connections of the African Diasporas. I don’t need to tell you what the presidency of Barrack Obama in US has done for the Black world. We feel proud even though we don’t live in America. We feel proud because a black man is now in the White House and now we need to connect with the African Diasporas as we have them in China, South America, and they are huge.
We all know the US is the biggest democracy and they are doing some fantastic works. So, we need to connect to that Diasporas to create power and also to have an intervention creation. And one of the most vital parts of that we have to do with education. That is, educating our people about their own awareness, roots and culture. You know the children we saw here were reading and as soon as they finished reading they want to go to work. They have been reading books made by Western authors from different cultures. And they believe every thing good comes from the West but those of us who have been educated believe that what we need is here and so we can take what we want from the West especially the good things.
I have benefited from most of the education and they put several pips on my shoulders. I read my way through the English practice and it was when I started reading my own writers that I felt it was like intravenous injection. I read English classics and I didn’t feel that connection. I appreciated it but they were describing words that were not familiar to me. But when I started reading my own African literature it was like they were giving me intravenous injection of knowledge. It was like this is what you want, where you come from, and you come from greatness so you mustn’t let any body put you down. As long as you believe that you come from greatness even the way you work and the way you handle yourself it will become the part and parcel of yourself
What is responsible for the apathy of publishers in the West against African writers?
You have to be aware and awake to the way western society has been educated to see us. You know it is in history books and we are slowly trying to change that tide. If you read Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s works, it is all around in his works. If you read How Europe Under-develop Africa, by Walter Rodney, you know why we are devalued in the eyes of the west. They see Africa as place where they come and take resources, not a place where they find talents. So, it is a historical thing, which we need to deal with and it takes a long time. What they do is that they take one writer and celebrate him everywhere as a trophy. For instance, there is Chimamanda Adichie, a brilliant writer. But they can’t love more than one of us at a time. They will be saying, ‘look at us we are celebrating African writer.’ Apart from that one writer, a hundred of Chimamandas are out there. They don’t really bother and that is what I am correcting with Ayebia.
I am not just interested in celebrating only one writer. I want to celebrate old good writers and who are making contributions to our knowledge base and this is because knowledge is power. If we don’t know about our own knowledge and we go out there to learn about somebody else knowledge, we are short changing ourselves because we have a lot to offer to the rest of the world.
So far, who are the writers on your stable?
I have published a collection of short stories and African lost stories, which was edited by Amata Edu. I have also published Ken Saro Wiwa’s book among others. We updated it and I am looking at three brand new writers at the moment. As I speak, am always looking for new talent because if we don’t nature the next generations of the Achebes and Soyinkas and the J.P Clark today, we will be sorry tomorrow. Specifically, my role is to bring to you new voices in Africa and the happening voices in Africa. I am very passionate about the fact that Africa needs to work for Africa and we need to connect to other African countries. That is why I am looking at having partnership with other publishers even though I am based in the West. I want to connect with African publishers who will publish and circulate in Africa while I will take it to the rest of the world.
When will these works be published?
They will be published early next year. From the reviews of the Zimbabwean writer that I have seen, people are saying it would be unbeatable because it is that good.
What kind of writings are you working on?
We are working on fiction, literature, autobiography. We have done our first collection of poetry and I want to talk to Professor J.P Clark. I don’t think you can call yourself a publisher until you publish poetry, short stories because the oral aspect of our languages is our strength.
Fiction and novel are European inventions and we have picked them and used. But we should show them that we can actually do better on a good day but I think we need to go back to our story telling traditions and use our modern tongues to get stories and poetries involve in that respect. In poetry, you have to be brief, you can’t just write because you want to write. Plays too are important and they are very important to our lives
I want to publish African books, make enough contributions of our younger generations so that we too have people who have achieved things. The West is not really going to celebrate them.
We have the first man in Kofi Annah as former secretary general of Commonwealth and we have Barrack Obama as US president. Next year Ayebia is starting a children programme. I write for children and I think that is the biggest challenge we have and I hope we can catch children young. And I wish we turn their minds to read about us and also have prized heritage. If you don’t do any thing now, when they are in primary and kindergarten, by the time they get to secondary school, it is probably too late. In secondary school, they are young and they are thinking of what to do, catch them long, teach them about the environment.
Do you pay advance to authors before publishing their books?
I do pay advance but then what kind of book? I can tell you it depends on the book. Every book is different, if I am publishing fiction it is different from poetry and it is different from autobiography and it is different from plays. Each book will have its own strategy and status so it is not possible for me to say I pay.
But when publishers take your money and publish your book, they won’t do any thing but leave your book on the shelves. We all see publishing as a business and a business is there to make profits. If you are not running it properly as a business that means the business is bound to fail. So, apart from doing a creative work, you also have business acumen. When you pick up a manuscript you are already thinking what it is the market value? How am I going to sell it? How many copies can I sell? Is it a kind of book that I intend to sell? So what I do as a publisher is to send manuscripts to lecturers for their opinion if it is the kind of book they are likely to recommend for literature classes. If they come back and say it is okay, I will publish it.
How can we improve publishing?
If you need to compete with the rest of the world, you need to raise the standard. It is as simple as that. If you have a story that is badly edited and badly typeset and the binding when you open it falls apart how can you sell the book , that is publishing in the world, if a book is not as good as yours that can still sell and that is the main criticism that is being said about us that our book is a substandard not just the book the editing, the typesetting, one of my biggest dream is to among the biggest publishing company in this continent no matter where it comes from, it might be my home town in Ghana. I have got to the stage which I don’t really care what I want to do is to be among the publishing house and train editors, typesetters, designers, all the processes that goes with publishing incidentally are also creating publishers I pay outside people I pay typesetter, I pay printers, I pay designers I paid editors, if I can train people here who can do it, it means I can employ people, am passing under the expertise, it took me twelve years to learn it and I was telling them in one of my sections yesterday if I was trained to be a doctor , I would have being twice a doctor. Twelve years is a long time but it takes time. Be prepared to undergo apprenticeship. It is not for a year or two. Something is happening because I see a lot of writers who are writing from the West. The world is now a global village, the world has become smaller because of the internet and all the new technologies that have been introduced. So, whether we like it or not western way of life is going to scale through.
What is your take on quality of language in manuscripts you have worked on?
I think this is where I come in. I am a stickler because I have been trained by Heinemann Publishers. When I was in Heinemann I published books that won prizes. So, how can you come down from there to publish something that is not good? And our new writers just want to make it because maybe they need money. But I think they have to be told they need to rely on African publishers who are working on very difficult situations.
We all know that Oxford is a place for publishers and all the publishers are there. Apparently, I am the only black publisher. Why not? If you can do it why can’t I? And that is what I am doing. I can do better than the foreign publishers can because I know the writers, I can identify with them and I have an affinity with them. And I know where they are coming from. So we need the support of the new writers and the need to understand that they don’t need to write to please the west. This is the main problem that I have. Their target audience is here and they are still writing for the West.
A day in time…and the people won
Political analysts, social scientists and historians will find the visual documentation of demonstrations that heralded the ruling of Appeal Court, Benin City, declaring Comrade Adams Oshiomhole Governor of Edo State on November 11, 2008, very useful reference materials. Ebiware Dotimi Okiy’s photo exhibition, A Day In Time: The People, The Comrade, tells the complete story in black and white, Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME reports
‘November 11, 2008 will forever remain one of the most incredible days in the history of the great Benin kingdom. On that monumental day, the presumed passive people of Benin City, the elite included, took to the streets in unprecedented fashion and style, reawakening the glorious return of the mighty gallant and prestigious people of Benin.’
Indeed, it was an unusual celebration that trailed the Appeal Court ruling that declared Comrade Adams Oshiomhole winner of the governorship election in Edo state. Thousands of broom-carrying demonstrators, motor-bike riders, market women, acrobats, students and horn blaring motorists over-ran major streets of Benin City, chanting victory songs.
All of these actions on the streets of the ancient Benin City did not go unrecorded. Amidst the madness, a graduate of Economics from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Ebiware Dotimi Okiy (one of the students of the famous Don Barber School in Lagos), dared the rampaging celebrants and the tight security to take vantage photographs that will be on exhibition at the Vichi Gate Hotel, Ihama Road, Benin City on October 24. Through his lens, the photographer captures variety of the scenes in black and white photographs for the solo exhibition, tagged; A Day In Time: The People, The Comrade.
The exhibits are in seven major segments namely; In the beginning, Brooms, Obama? Okada!, Ecstasy, Police Bomb Squad and The Comrade. Central to the elements of most of the photographs are people, vehicles, posters, banners and brooms. Sarcastically, there is a photograph in the collection that shows two men holding a torn and collapsed umbrella tucked under a huge broom, which speaks volume of the rivalry between the two major political opponents in the state. Also striking in the collection are posters and banners that carry messages like Comrade Governor: Yes we Can, and Edo State Obama.
However, the photographer does not see the collection in the main, as statement about politics but about the Edo State people and their culture of celebration. “I saw for the first time elites on the streets as everybody moves to town to join in the celebration with their big cars and jeeps. It was sheer madness. But everybody seems to be expressing their feelings from inside with little regards to political inclination. In fact, it was a strong message; victory for the people,” he said.
Ordinarily, one will expect that security officials will constitute obstacles to the expression of the peoples’ feelings. According to the photographer, though there was tight security, everybody had enough space to express themselves. ‘There was a shot I took standing on top of the police van,” he recalled.
Unlike most photo exhibitions, no work in this show will be for sale because it is an opportunity for other Nigerians to see what happened in Benin City on November 11, 2008. “I feel very fulfill holding the show and I am not going to sell any of the photographs. I chose the ancient city of Benin to host the exhibition because it is where the actions took place. Also, I want to use this show to encourage documentary photography in the city, according to Okiy, who runs a digital photography studio in Benin.
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