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General Report
Project Director:
C. Krydz Ikwuemesi
Country Coordinators:
Nigeria: Ayo Adewunmi
Benin: Gerard Tognimassou
Togo: Gustave Akpehou Djonda
Burkina Faso: Hamed Ouattara
Mali: Hama Goro
Ghana: Samuel Olou/Akwele Suma Glory
Countries covered: Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Burkina
Faso, Mali, Ghana, summing up to approximately 4000
kilometres
REPORT
Apathy! Disdain! Disappointment!
These are the feelings that come to the fore when art is
discussed in most parts of Africa. Lagos may boast of
several galleries - about twenty times what you may find
in Lome or even a city as Cairo - but Nigerians are not
exempt from the usual apathy that attends art and other
issues in humanism in the continent.
January 8, 2004. Opening day of Overcoming Map 3
in Lagos. A little crowd - mainly from the art tribe -
gathered at Pendulum Art Gallery, venue of the event; a
small but effective crowd of artists, art enthusiasts,
and culture journalists. Modern Medici Alhaji Abdulaziz
Chivuzo Ude, a patron of PACA, a major supporter of
cultural and artistic causes, and perhaps, one of the
liveliest humanists to emerge in Nigeria in the
twentieth century, opened the exhibition. He spoke of
humanity, of apathy and underdevelopment in Africa. He
also spoke of corruption and the lack of support for art
and artists in Nigeria and Africa; he spoke about
humanism and what Jonathan Sacks would label “the
politics of hope”, 1 that middle ground where the
ambitions of the individual can positively encounter the
aspirations of the community in the pursuit of the
“common good”. But he was happy with Overcoming Maps and
other PACA initiatives, which, he said, could become
germs of genuine development, at least from the cultural
standpoint.
Present at the opening of the exhibition were the
exhibiting artists from Nigeria, members of the press
and the general public. Other notable guests that graced
the opening included Nigeria’s leading art connoisseur
and culture patron Engr. Yemisi Shyllon (who is also a
patron of PACA), erudite journalist and anthropologist
Mr Peter Ezeh (who chaired the Roundtable discussion the
next day) and painter and art critic Dr. Kunle Filani
among many others. The exhibiting artists present
included the Project Director, C. Krydz Ikwuemesi,
Nigerian Coordinator, Ayo Adewunmi, Ugochukwu-Smooth
Nzewi, Okey Nwafor, Tony Odeh, Cliff Nwanna, Henry
Mujunga (Ugandan), Chikwe Eheli, Abel Mac Diakparomre,
and Okey Chinwuba.
Apart from Alhaji Ude, Peter Ezeh, one of Nigeria’s best
international journalists, and former Press Fellow at
Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, also spoke at
the opening. In consonance with Ude, Ezeh spoke of
nescience and the incursion of the postmodern spirit
into the religious and social milieu, an attitude that
has contributed immensely to the prevailing
underdevelopment of Africa.
If Europe underdeveloped Africa as one of Chinweizu’s
books would have us believe, the real underdevelopment
can be traced to Africans themselves, who in the 20th
century have learnt or forgotten nothing in the
experience of colonisation. A continent that has fallen
into the hands of barbarians and bohemians in the
morning of her political development approximates a
convulsive patient. It is worse for the patient when the
disease is also the antidote. Africa’s disease – her
so-called leaders – is also her antidote. The continent
is thus, an animal trapped in its own cage.
The prevailing misfortune of Africa is part of the price
she pays for the alienation of art from society. When
art dies in a community, the community becomes a classic
zombie, a pitiable creature without a soul. But it must
be noted that the death or otherwise of art cannot be
measured by the contents or stocks of art galleries; it
does not depend on how many works are bought and sold by
the galleries and art collectors. Nor does it depend on
how much money a few artists make in a given place. The
economic survival of the art tribe for its own sake has
little or no relevance in the perpetuation of society.
Art is only relevant to the survival of society to the
extent that it is in the heart of the centralizing myth
which help to intensify the riddle of the universe,
while purporting to confront, explore, and exploit it.
The death of art in Nigeria - and of course, Africa - is
evidenced by the little crowd at Pendulum Art Gallery on
January 8, 2004. It was the art tribe, with the art
tribe, for the art tribe; artists and culture
journalists. A beleaguered tribe trapped in the cycle of
exhibitions, roundtables, conferences, art talks, study
tours. Then Overcoming Maps. What maps? Who cares?
Otherwise, where is the Minister of Culture and Tourism?
The ECOWAS Executive Secretary? Directors in the Culture
Ministry? National TV? Where is everybody? They were all
invited. But where else do they ever go outside the
well-oiled circles of politics?
The roundtable on January 9 – also at Pendulum
Art Gallery – attempted to address some of the questions
raised above. But did it really succeed? In spite of the
perspicacity of the theme and Peter Ezeh’s mature
handling of the lead talk, the roundtable ended in the
usual manner with people making the most passionate
arguments and harangues about the position of art and
artist in the society. Beyond such talks, nothing
serious and exciting ever happens in the areas of visual
arts and culture in Africa. It is always the art tribe
talking to itself. The only time art may take the centre
stage is when politicians gather and art – of whatever
kind – is needed for entertainment, to massage their
fastidious ego.
Africa’s neo-colonial leaders do not appreciate the role
of art beyond magic2 and entertainment. They lack the
capacity to recognise and exploit the role art can play
in shaping a people’s consciousness.
Perhaps, this was the unvoiced statement made by that
little effective audience at Pendulum Art Gallery on
January 8. What the Peter Ezeh-led roundtable on January
9 did was apparently to give voice to, and reaffirm,
this statement.
January 10, 2004. Pendulum Art Gallery was a
beehive of activities. The Nigerian segment of
Overcoming Maps had ended and the artists were getting
ready to travel to the Republic of Benin. A few minutes
before departure, Kolade Oshinowo, one of Nigeria’s
successful painters and former Deputy Rector, Yaba
College of Technology, Lagos, visited to see the
exhibition. The works were already in the bus, neatly
parked. So Mr. Oshinowo greeted the artists and wished
the party bon voyage. Also coming at the same time was a
news team from Minaj Broadcast International, the only
TV station in Lagos to give very adequate coverage to
Overcoming Maps. Martin Uzoka, a reporter who led the
Minaj crew, conducted short interviews with some of the
artists. Nigerian Television Authority was also to cover
the departure from Lagos by the Overcoming Maps team,
but it never came. (This was to be exception, because in
the other countries Overcoming Maps would later enjoy
adequate coverage from the National TV and other
channels).
4.00pm. The party left for Porto Novo. It takes about
two hours to get to Seme border and about 45 minutes to
get to Porto Novo from there. But leaving Pendulum
Gallery at 4.00pm, the Overcoming Maps party did not
reach Porto Novo before 11.45pm in the night. It is both
strange and sad. But the reasons for the delay must be
saved for another segment of this book. It is at once
interesting and disturbing that the study party took
about 7 hours to arrive Porto Novo. Anybody who knows
the distance between Lagos and Enugu (about 550
kilometres) would agree that 7 hours are enough to cover
that distance, travelling in a car or bus. Not only
that. Someone going to London or Amsterdam from Lagos at
the same time the party left Lagos would have arrived
safely within 7 hours and probably settled into a hotel.
That it took 7 hours for the Overcoming Maps party to
travel from Lagos to Porto Novo – a journey that should
take just 3 hours – is an exemplar of the tragedy of
modern Africa.
On arriving L’Ecole du Patrimoine Africain (EPA) which
was previously scheduled as venue for the exhibition,
there was no one to welcome the group apparently because
it was past midnight. The security guard was helpful as
he assisted the team in locating a hotel where it passed
the night.
In the morning, the team was discovered by one of the
host artists, Simplice Ahouansou, who came around when
he sighted the study tour bus in front of L a Capitale
Hotel as he went to make a phone call at a nearby cabin.
He quickly contacted the other Beninese artists who
promptly joined the party. The team went off in search
of the Country Coordinator of Overcoming Maps for Benin
Republic and other concerned persons who were supposed
to be part of the project. Unfortunately, the three key
persons were out of town, without a word for the
visiting artists. This was a sad indictment on the level
of commitment to issues and awareness that is shown by
Africans when fellow Africans spearhead positive
projects from inside Africa. The response to
Occidentalist projects is usually swifter, more serious
and positive.
The next port of call was the Musee Honme – Palais
Royal, Porto Novo, venue of the exhibition. The museum
is a cultural heritage site. It is said to be the former
royal court of successive Porto Novo dynasties. It was
renovated in 1988 and turned into a museum with the
assistance of the Ministry of Cooperation, France, and
the government of Benin Republic. Although it had
previously been said that the venue would be gratis,
PACA was asked to pay a token for using the museum. This
token (CFA37, 000.00) was to be followed by another
(CFA30, 000.00) for light refreshment at the opening
ceremony. The opening of the exhibition at Porto Novo
shared some commonalities with that of Lagos: That small
effective crowd. In spite of daily reports on Overcoming
Maps in the Beninese media, visits to the exhibition
were low, although it was occasionally boosted by idle
white tourists.
The attitude of the Beninese Ministry of Culture and
Tourism was also not different from that of its Nigerian
counterpart. In spite of efforts made by PACA, the
Beninese artists and EPA, audience at the Culture
Ministry was not possible. But by the eve of the final
day in Porto Novo, officials of the Culture Ministry
made some embarrassing moves. The Director of the Musee
Honme, Mrs. Elizabeth Bonou, was invited to Cotonou to
explain why she allowed PACA to use the museum without
authorization. When the artists met her later that day,
she was a bundle of nerves and trepidation. She said her
superiors in the ministry were blaming her for not
making it possible for the ministry to receive the
Overcoming Maps party in Cotonou. Her job, she said, was
on the line and PACA should pay fully for the venue
(another CFA37, 000.00) so that she could send a proper
account to the ministry.
It was the classic African scenario, the usual
buck-passing, the nonsensical attitude towards the
visual arts in these parts. It was also a sad irony,
given the fact that letters and fax messages were sent
to the Beninese Ministry of Culture from Nigeria to
which there were no replies. But if the Culture Ministry
in Nigeria from where Overcoming Maps was organised
could not respond to similar letters sent to it, why
should anyone especially the organizers who are
Nigerians, really worry about the Beninese?
It may be necessary to mention that in the morning of
the third day in Porto Novo, the project recorded
another surprise. The Nigerian journalist who was part
of the team absconded for reasons best known to him,
apparently heading back to Nigeria, without a word with
the coordinators. Put mildly, the action was a pastiche
of the laissez-faire that pervades the common
consciousness in Nigeria today.
January 13, 2004. A visit to the Ethnographic
Museum. The museum was established in 1966 and is named
after Alexander Senou Adande (1912 – 1993). Adande was a
foremost archeologist whose archeological finds make up
the museum. Later in the day at about 4.00pm, the second
roundtable of Overcoming Maps opened at L’Ecole
Patrimoine Africain with the theme “What is Art/ Where
is Art? The Meaning of Art in the African Cosmos”. The
lead talk was given by Professor Joseph Adande and Mr.
Abel Diakparomre. Adande talked on misrepresentation and
misinterpretation and the creation of a relevant
post-modern art in Africa. Diakparomre on his own part,
raised issues on art definition as it affects Africa.
The lead talks were followed by a very lively
discussion, with artists and journalists contributing.
The following day, the exhibition in Porto Novo ended
and the team left for Lome. The journey was generally
uneventful save for a dramatic robbery incident that
occurred as the party drove through Cotonou. Traffic was
held up as the police engaged a group of bandits who
were rumoured to have driven into the area in a car
purportedly stolen from Nigeria. Businesses were halted
for several minutes, as the commercial motorcycle
drivers (taxi moto) formed an unruly convoy while they
cheered the police on their achievement. The average
passer-by was not left out in the madness. For the
Overcoming Maps team, the incident was, perhaps, a
timely reminder of the problem of insecurity in most
West African cities, which at times approximate
hell-holes. The team visited the Centre de Promotion de
Culture et de L’Artisanat, Cotonou and the French Centre
on its way to Lome. During the tour of the craft centre,
an argument erupted among participants on the
relationship between art and craft. Not unnaturally, the
argument could not be resolved before the team headed
for the border. The attitude of the officials at the
Benin-Togo border was slightly better than what the
study tour team witnessed at the Seme border. But
officials at the two borders obviously share in the open
and intractable corruption that defines the public
service in much of Africa.
The team arrived Lome at about 8.30pm, and waiting to
receive it was Gustave Djonda Akpehou, the country
Coordinator of Overcoming Maps 3 in Togo. In the morning
of 15 January, the team was at the Galerie Marina Veruna,
venue of the programme, where it was joined by the
Togolese artists. The Director of the gallery George
Agbada welcomed the visiting artists and issues
bordering on the Study Tour and PACA’s objectives were
discussed. The next day, the exhibition was mounted and
the team visited the French Cultural Centre, Lome. The
Director, Philippe Debrion received the party and
treated it to a guided tour of the centre. The team also
visited ARTISTIK, a cultural and art centre owned by
Assou Kossi who shared the same idealistic goals as PACA.
The goals informed the setting up of the centre as a
place wholly dedicated to the promotion of African art
and culture from inside. The roundtable was held the
same day at Galerie Marina. The activities were well
reported in the Togolese media as in Benin Republic.
The exhibition in Lome was an open-air affair, at the
roof of the Galerie Marina Veruna, overlooking the
suburb of Lome. The Roundtable opened with the theme
“Can Art fill the Vacuum?: the Potentials of Art in
Social Development”. The lead talk was given by Mr. Abel
Mac Diakparomre and Cliff Nwanna and a presentation on
“Art in Uganda” was made by Henry Mujunga. These and
more provided food-for-thought for participants whose
contributions during the open discussion were a medley
of informed and uninformed opinions.
January 17, 2004. Events at Lome rounded off
amidst excitements and hope for departure for Burkina
Faso. The number of participants swelled with the
inclusion of the Togolese artists. The team departed
Lome at 4.00pm for Burkina Faso, travelling into the
night. Getting to Sokode, it was alerted on the problem
of armed robbery in the area. A policeman was allowed to
escort the team to Kara where it passed the night. This,
the Togolese artists explained, was the usual practice
in this area – the northern part of the country – where
President Eyadema hails from, and it had the backing of
the authorities. The journey to Ouagodougou, capital of
Burkina Faso, continued around 8.00am the next day,
tedious and endless. The bus continued endlessly through
the long winding stretch, marked by large, nerve-racking
potholes and dust. At 2.30pm, it pulled up at the border
town of Cinkasse. From there, the journey to Ouagadougou
took more than 7 hours before the team finally arrived
the city at 8.30pm. Hamed Ouattara the Country
Coordinator for Burkina Faso was on hand to receive the
Overcoming Maps party at the first major roundabout in
Ouagadougou.
January19, 2004. In the morning the team went
first to Village Artisanal (craft village). Here the
craft of Burkina Faso were displayed in grand style.
Works on display included wood works, bronze, stone,
leather works, textile, painting etc, all showing the
rich talents of Burkinabe craftsmen, and of course,
their rich cultural heritage. From the crafts village,
the party moved to the sculpture village in Loango. This
sculpture village hosts the popular international
biennial workshop with the support of the government and
some international organisations. It was created by the
artist Siriki ky with the help of government, nay, the
president who also hails from Loango. Every two years,
selected artists receive CFA1, 500,000.00 to participate
in the workshop, working on location and mainly in
granite stones.
The roundtable conference was held the next day, January
20th, at the French Cultural Centre. The major questions
raised were: “How do we get contemporary African art to
the same position that it occupied in Traditional
African Society?” and “How do we reposition art such
that it becomes important to those who rule us, so that
the artist and his work would be considered important
enough to participate in nation building?” The
conference was largely fructifying and fulfilling,
although the discussions were neither conclusive nor
exhaustive.
Arising from the conference the team went for the
opening of the exhibition at ANAPAP Centre from where
some selected participants and the Country Coordinator,
Hamed Ouattara, visited the Burkinabe Minister of
Culture in his office. The minister Mahamoudou Ouedraogo
was very glad to meet with the delegation and seemed
pleased to hear of Overcoming Maps 3 and its ideals, as
he said that art held the real keys to socio-political
integration in Africa. Later in the evening, the artists
visited the Espace Godwana. Run by a French man, Espace
Godwana with its uncanny but exciting architecture was a
rare cross between a gallery and a restaurant. As the
artists sauntered around admiring the unique setting,
the proprietor said several times, “C’est votre maison.
C’est votre maison. Je ne suis que le gardien!”
January 21, 2004. The team woke up early enough
to push further to the next frontier. Incessant police
checkpoints, occasional stoppage either to refill the
fuel tank or for a member of the study tour team to seek
a convenience were factors that made the journey to
Bamako longer than anticipated. The team stopped and
slept at Bobo when dusk approached. As early as 6.30am
the next day, the bus left Bobo and sped towards Bamako
amidst the usual police checkpoints, and by 11pm Bamako
was a reality. The team was received and shown to a
hotel by Bourama Diakite, one of the Malian artists.
January23, 2004. Hama Goro, Malian Co-ordinator
of Overcoming Maps 3 returned from India that very
morning. No doubt, his absence had affected logistics,
but he was able to pull a few strings to enable things
happen as fast as they could. The exhibition was mounted
at Soleil d’Afrique in the morning, and much later in
the day, the roundtable commenced with the theme: “What
is Art/Where is Art?: Re-interrogating Art in Africa in
the Face of the Cultural Turn”. Ayo Adewunmi opened the
discussion with a brief introduction of PACA and its
objectives. Talks were given by Henry Mujunga, Simplice
Ahouansou (who spoke on contemporary art in Benin
Republic), Abel Diakparomre among others. Other issues
discussed included the role of art in traditional
African and contemporary African society. The
stimulating open discussions provided the highpoint for
the conference.
January 24, 2004. As early as 6.00am members of
the study tour team checked out of the Hotel Kountena in
Bamako and left for Accra-Ghana. Some kilometres before
Koutiala, the bus broke down; apprehension hung in the
air. The driver quickly crawled under the bus, loosened
and fastened a nut to a pipe and the bus bounced back,
heading courageously towards Accra. The target for the
day was a stop at Bobo which was actualised fortunately.
The team checked into Oaby’s Hotel where it spent the
night.
January 25, 2004. Departure from Oaby’s hotel was
scheduled at 9.00am. But the journey could not commence
because of an impromptu meeting demanded by some
participants who were displeased by the “system of
organisation and communication”. Matters were ironed out
after about one and a half hours of dialogue before the
party could depart. When the journey resumed, the team
stopped over at Dioulassoba Mosque, Bobodioulasso, which
was built in 1807. It was built in the traditional style
of ancient Moslem architecture. Its use as a place of
worship has survived through ancient times and still
endured, even as rigours of worship posed danger for the
primeval architecture. The team arrived Ouagadougou
around 5pm. To guard against any unexpected problem on
the side of the bus, some spare parts were bought and
the journey to Accra continued. The target was to get to
Bolgatanga, the border town in Northern Ghana. The team
finally slept at Po still in Burkina Faso, because the
Burkina-Ghana border had closed an hour before its
arrival there.
January 26, 2004. Departure from Po was exactly
at 5.00am. Border checks took 3 hours. The team left
without any anticipation of another interruption but on
getting to Bolgatanga in Northern Ghana, the bus
threatened to breakdown. Repair was inevitable. It took
about two hours. This and other contingencies
contributed in delaying the journey. Through Tamale,
Kintampo, Techiman, the bus sped courageously towards
Kumasi. Members struggled to overcome the last
tribulations for the august meeting in Accra.
Unfortunately, the party arrived very late, too late to
attend a reception organized the previous evening in its
honour by Virginia Ryan, wife of the Italian Ambassador
to Ghana and a participant in Overcoming Maps 3.
Although the reception was stretched from 7.30pm till 12
midnight to see if the travelling artists could arrive,
the artists got to Accra at almost 1.00am in the
morning. A phone call from a public pay phone got Akwele
Glory, one of the Ghanaian co-ordinators to come and
meet the party where it was waiting beside Ghana
Telecom. She led the team to the two hotels where it
passed the little fragment left of the night. She
returned later in the morning in the company of Samuel
Olou, a Togolese artist resident in Ghana (one of the
coordinators for Ghana). They took the team to WEB. du
Bois Centre, where works were mounted for the
exhibition. The Director of the centre Dr. Sekou Nkrumah
welcomed participants. Prof. Joe Nkrumah introduced a
representative of the chairman of the Ministry of
Culture, Mrs Esi Sutherland-Addy and PACA Patron Engr.
Yemisi Shyllon both of whom made speeches in support of
PACA’s ideals. To mark the opening was also traditional
Ghanaian music. The crowd at du Bois Centre was
encouraging more than most countries visited, perhaps in
the spirit of a grand finale. Under the whispering aura
of the trees, which gave du Bois Centre an exotic
outlook, people milled around reacting differently to
the exhibits.
January 28, 2004. At about 11am the conference
hall at W.E.B du Bois Centre was filled to brim with a
medley crowd. The roundtable opened with theme
“Overcoming Maps: Art, Integration and the African
Experience”. There were paper presentations by artists
on the art situation in their respective countries.
Prof. Joe Nkrumah spoke on the essence of creation, man,
and ethereal in relation to the mystery of existence. He
talked of how man has been an instrument of territorial
imperialism by drawing lines on a piece of paper which
ultimately impeded progress in the world. Peter Ezeh
spoke on the contribution of Africa to world
civilization and the imperative for an African
renaissance, while Dr. Kunle Filani focused on the
essence and significance of maps and contemporary
reality. A climax was reached as artists from the six
countries and other professionals engaged in heated
discussions. Gender issues, Pan-Africanism, language
differences, art politics and other contemporary issues
all informed the lively debate.
January 29, 2004. Members left around 5.30am for
a visit to Elmina Castle. Elmina was the first town in
tropical Africa to be in contact with the Europeans. The
Portuguese and the Dutch at one time or the other traded
in slaves in this castle. The British later used it as
the administrative headquarters of its colonial project
in Ghana. Hundreds of years of slave trade saw Elmina
Castle as one of the greatest centres of torture and
inhumanity in the history of mankind. Rape, torment,
pain, murder, massacre, were cheap in this castle in
four centuries as European merchants and missionaries
and imperialists pursued their ignoble goals at various
points in history.
From Elmina the team returned again to du Bois Centre
where the show was wrapped up by a group installation
titled Africa Union 1. Every artist participated by
contributing one piece or the other to the installation.
Objects installed included white cloth, a hollow tyre,
an empty bucket, a stump of wood, a ladder, a bamboo
stick, etc. Each artist added something that would
connote integration.
January 30, 2004. “Bon Voyage”, “Goodbye” filled
the air as participants departed from du Bois Centre. It
was really an emotional moment for the artists whose
fraternal union had grown so firm that parting seemed
like eternal separation. As some female participants
shed tears, their male counterparts struggled to hold
back their emotions. But there seemed to be one
consensus: Overcoming Maps 3 held some promise; its
essences and significations needed to be pushed to the
limits.
The Nigerian, Togolese, and Beninese artists left Accra
the same morning (30 January). The Burkinabe and Malian
artists were to leave the following day, as there was no
daily transport between Ghana and their respective
countries. For the Nigeria-Benin-Togo team, the journey
was a variant of a nightmare; once more, the officials
at the various borders made nonsense of ECOWAS and
Africa-Union by delaying the artists for unbearably long
periods for dubious reasons. It was worse at the
Nigerian border where the party arrived a few minutes
before midnight. The officials, apparently frustrated at
their inability to extort money from the party, resorted
to guttersnipe tactics. Although they had the passports
of all the artists before them, they demanded for ID
cards of some, and said they would search the bus for
drugs.
In particular, the drug law officials wanted to search
the South African artist who was part of the travelling
party for reasons best known to them. After about three
hours of a vexatious hide-and-seek, the situation
degenerated into a pandemonium where invectives were
freely traded. One of the drug law officials addressed
the artists as “foolish and useless art teachers” and
threatened to “fire” at the bus tyres and at all the
artists in sight, all for no reason. It took the
intervention of one gentle-looking official before the
passports were returned to the artists.
The rest of the journey within Nigeria was uneventful in
spite of the uncountable police and other checkpoints on
the road. At one point, a policeman threatened to
impound the bus, as the driver had only his
international driving licence. He did not want to hear
that the bus had been travelling through several
countries for 20 days and had just returned to Nigeria a
few minutes ago. He barked that it was a “stolin veicule”
(stolen vehicle) and that “potokopees” (photocopies) of
the vehicle documents must be produced at once. The
weary party was rescued from his snare by a senior
officer and the bus sped off again, arriving Pendulum
Art Gallery a few minutes before 5.00am in the Morning
of January 30, 2004.
Later in the day, the party was informed that
journalists from Nigerian Television Authority (NTA)
were coming to interview some of the participants at 12
noon. Peter Areh, Director of Pendulum Gallery called
the TV station several times to say that the artists
were waiting. 2.00pm. No, 4.00pm. Ok, why not 7.00pm in
the evening? Such were the responses from NTA at the
various discussions with Mr. Areh. By 8.00pm in the
night, it was obvious that NTA was not coming. No
apology, either. But Minaj Broadcast International came,
with Martin Uzoka leading the crew again. They arrived
at 9.00pm and talked with some of the artists at length.
Considering that this same TV was there at the departure
on January 10, it was good that it was also present at
the very end of the event. A kind of logical ending for
Overcoming Maps 3, perhaps. What a remarkable odyssey.
Comment
Overcoming Maps 3 obviously brought the artists and
other participants face to face with some of the
realities of a (under)developing continent. Travelling
by road afforded the artists the opportunity to
appreciate some of the myriad problems facing the
continent, especially the social contradictions that are
part of the fall-out of neo-colonisation. Along most of
the roads linking the different countries visited, mud
houses lined the roadsides like bitter testimonials to
the failure of post-independence African leaders.
Everywhere hawkers swarmed like kites as they peddled
various wares in search of the precarious daily bread.
But the most depressing of all are the faces of hungry
weather-beaten children loitering around bus terminals
along the roads begging, waiting for crumbs and pieces
like patient vultures awaiting the arrival of death in a
colony of wounded beasts. Perhaps, these are the genuine
visage of Africa, the other (ugly) side of the beautiful
coin personified by some of Africa’s capital cities, the
skyscrapers and the dashing city (sky?) dwellers? But
the mud houses, hungry children, skyscrapers and city
dwellers share one thing in common. They are all
products of the dissonance that has enveloped an
otherwise promising continent. They also are a concrete
testimony of the misfortune arising from the apparent
separation of art from society in modern Africa.
The other problems that stand out solidly in bold relief
are those of integration and unity. Apparently bent on
aping the European Union, Africa, with African Union and
ECOWAS, does not seem to understand the real meaning of
integration and unity; nor are its leaders ready to lay
the necessary foundation for any such attainment. How
could one contemplate an ECOWAS sub-region where visions
and policies are still highly compartmentalized, where
the desire for free movement and integration remains
mere desire and on paper mostly?
From the Overcoming Maps 3 experience, what emerges - at
least from the participants’ point of view - is the
urgent need for art to return to the centre and play a
more significant role in the conception and pursuit of
social development and excellence. Sadly, this appears
unattainable in the present circumstances given the
lacklustre attitude of most African governments to art
and creativity. This reality becomes even more
depressing when one considers the situation in the
francophone countries where there are no art schools at
the tertiary level. In most cases, this situation
truncates the ideological essence of art which is the
aspect of art that easily aligns with politics in the
quest for rounded social development. Perhaps the
centralising lesson of Overcoming Maps 3 is that the
need for art’s salve in the contradictory social milieu
in Africa has become more urgent than ever. If the
unending song about development and integration in
Africa is to become a more meaningful possibility, art
must become one of the major notes with which that song
is written.
Compiled by:
C.
Krydz Ikwuemesi,
Okey Nwafor and Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi.
Notes
1. See Jonathan Sacks, 2000. The Politics of Hope.
London: Vintage
2. R. G. Collingwood, The Principles of Art
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