African Arts, Culture and Literature Advocacy

Between Cultural Ethos/Consciousness and Revolutionary Aesthetics: the Music of EDAOTO.

2012-01-31T23:38:00.000-08:00

Music, besides power, is intoxication

- Sufi Inayat Khan -


Edaoto in a documentary film - "Ghettoration" by Aderemi Adegbite

He may not come in the mould of a Mozart. He may not also possess the western touch of a Beethoven, or the dexterity of performance like a Michael Jackson. Even a Barry White or Steve Wonder, may just be out of comparison with his own brand of music, yet, what is certain, without any doubt, is that he has the energy to hold an audience spellbound, the vocal vitality to create a lasting impression on whoever encounters his music either in recorded form or while he is in performance, as well as the appearance-most important of all-to symbolize two distinct elements, which will readily stand him out from a crowd so much that one will want to ask “who really is this guy?”.

For some of us who grew up with him and know him so well, albeit to a great extent, music is simply an avenue to fulfill what in biblical parlance can be called “a calling’, knowing the kind of person he is, the energy with which he argues his point, the esteem and passion with which he holds his religious faith and zeal with which he wants to learn and acquire knowledge. Art, music, in this sense, becomes some sort of a “devotional imperative” for a soul yearning to understand his society, his real purpose on this planet earth, and, quite predictably too, what he is meant to contribute towards the advancement of that society, first as an individual in the cosmos and second as an embodiment of the creative essence of his Creator.

Art, as seen by Zulu Sofola, is “a creative experience which is the only human experience that is nearest to God because it is in that experience that man shares very clearly in the most enduring and significant attribute of the Supreme Deity”, because, it “emanates from the soul of man, the centre of his being in which resides his divine quality as the zenith of creation”, and ultimately as “the medium through which the soul of man reaches out beyond itself to transform and make intelligible the prodding within the inner recesses for the ultimate Truth, the meaning of existence, man’s place in the cosmos, his relationship to the Supreme Creator and to his fellow creatures, and finally the ultimate end of man”(2)

Edaoto readily cuts the picture of a reggae artiste, judging from his appearance, especially his dreadlock hairstyle, synonymous with the Rastafarian movement. However, that is where it all ends. The lyrics of his compositions, ranging from folk tradition, to myth and vintage Afrobeats provide a basis to examine his brand of music from perspectives, chief among which is the fact that he embodies the totality of the attributes of the African oral performer. Song rendition apart, the compositions in themselves encapsulate the energy that a writer would want to channel into his creative material, especially in the arrangement of the idea into the sequence of plot and characterization towards the realization of a set out objective, otherwise known as the thematic thrust.

Central in this regard are the oral artistes – griots, bards, minstrels, ewi chanters and story tellers who-often engaged in their art-utilized the medium of the spoken word. To Akporobaro, “the artist who performs in the medium of the spoken word is engaged in the same creative process as the modern writer who creates through the written words”, because in several ways than one, “while engaged in the process of storytelling as in the folktale or legend or in the evocation of imagery when reciting poems or creating rhythm and melody in his lyrical self expression, he shares with the modern writer the same element of creativity and language manipulation”.(3)

Edaoto’s kind of music, for its simplicity in terms of composition, effectiveness in his impact and delivery, the affinity towards the sublime often, despite the instrumentation and the blend of percussion, use of western instrumentation such as the guitar, drum set, trumpet and saxophone- components which help to achieve the heavy beats synonymous with the Afrobeats style-something striking is still very much discernable, mainly, the creativity with many dimensions, which he shares with the oral artist including, among others “the imaginative communication of experience, the communication of ideas of significant human value and the heightened organization of the resources of language towards the achievement of aesthetic effects”.(4)

Edaoto at Lagos Life Series 16, Photo by Aderemi Adegbite

A very striking influence on his composition is his Ifa faith, which underlines his cultural outlook to life and his environment. Ifa, as the storehouse of esoteric wisdom and knowledge embodies a careful and highly developed process of human intellectual development properly located in the Yoruba consciousness and serving as the cornerstone of the faith in the divine. This form of knowledge, theosophy, as it is known is a systematic formulation of the facts of visible and invisible nature which, as expressed through the illuminated human mind -Babalawo / diviner- takes the apparently separate forms of science, philosophy and religion, and, it is not just philosophical (but also) a religious system based on intuitive knowledge of the living (because) most of the utterances are either prosaic poetry or poetic prose or both interwoven in the Ifa corpus.(Ajikobi,9)

As a devotee of Ifa and one, who is versed in such spiritual process of awakening, he perceives the world in the light of the interplay of the forces and elements, with emphasis on the place of the individual in the vast universe, the knowledge of which he can never fully fathom. This in itself underscores his deep understanding of the fact that “for the African and his Afro-Caribbean progeny, religion is the essence of life” (Ojo-Ade,48) and that “religion in essence is the means by which God as Spirit and man’s essential self communicate”(Idowu,75). With music, he somewhat re-choes Nketia’s submission that in many parts of Africa, the general pattern of musical organization emphasizes the integration of music with other social and political actions, as well as with those other activities through which Africans express or consolidate their interpersonal relationship, beliefs and attitude to life, knowing that such occasions for public musical performances range from purely recreational, ceremonial and social attempt to the religious (24).

His song, ‘Aiye o fe ni f’oro’ inspired by a highly dialectic Ifa verse probes into such esoteric wisdom while, at the same time cautions against trusting any human being, knowing that man, by his very nature, is unpredictable, prone to evil thought and actions as well as deceit. Unlike the Christian Bible which has greatly maligned the belief in traditional African deities like the Eshu for instance-this much is discussed by Funso Aiyejina in a seminar paper at the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC) annual Black History Month lecture - which foresees a world of perfect harmony among plants, animals and their younger ones alongside their arrogant and ruthless neighbour man, Ifa calls for rich sense and caution in the dealings by man with his fellow man. Yet, he also understands, and, underscores this even as he cautions against reposing absolute trust in any human being that man’s experiences on earth, as well as material objects, have meaning only in relationship to elements of the other world-the world of Olorun, the Supreme Deity, and the Orisha, the deities-Eshu, Ifa, Obatala, Oduduwa, Yemoja,Sango, Ogun etc(48) This is why in the composition ‘Aye o f’eni f’oro’, these Orisha are ‘present’ as metaphors for the powers and even mortal replicas of the human race.

Knowing the kind of world in which we live and the evil which lurks at the very centre of man’s heart as the Eleri ipin(witness of fate at creation), Ifa admonishes wisdom as deciphered from Edaoto’s composition, ‘Aiye o f’eni f’oro’, contrary to a section of the 11th chapter of the book of Isaiah in which “the wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will play with the young goat, the calf and the young lion will falt together, the cow and the bear will graze on the same site, playing hide and seek together, the cobra and the nursing child will exchange friendly winks, the lion, like the oz, will feed on straw and a little child will lead and minister to them all”. Such a world is merely an illusion and, like all illusions, can only exist in the imagination.

Edaoto’s delve into the repository of Ifa and bringing out of the song – it is more of an anthem in literary gatherings, such as WORDSLAM, Poetry Potter, CORA Stampede, the annual Ife Poetry Festival and Savannah Bar, a popular joint on Iwaya road, Onike, where he regularly performs – is a demonstration of an artist’s awareness and utilization of the cultural ideology of his people, even today in a world already taken over by foreign music genres and entertainment values. He echoes Khan’s opinion that “music is the most sacred of all art”(3) and the understanding that there is an African identity encapsulated in the same African world existence in which there are well defined ideas of nature, human life, existence, social relations, even as much as they affect man; and, this in turn being the basis for defining and interpreting cosmic and other ecological phenomena because, man in the African world is never conceptualized as an individual per se but essentially as a part of the collectivity in spite of his unique and characteristic idiosyncrasies (Onwuachi, 16).

Culture, the very dynamic structure for the better understanding of nations and man also becomes a veritable tool for what Olaniyan calls “race retrieval and cultural apprehension” with a song like “Osaa mo, pe Yoruba ni mi” etc. Music turns into a tool to join the call for cultural revival and more specifically, the Black African movement. Though subtle in approach, yet the message is loud and apt: there is the urgent need for all peoples’ of Black descent to retrace their steps, embrace their ‘forsaken’ old tradition starting with the names that they bear. Little wonder that Edaoto has adopted this stage name, throwing into the trash bin and refuse dump of history his Christian/Anglo-Saxon name at birth–Lawrence. Thus, Lawrence Agbeniyi becomes Edaoto, taking a cue from the very famous Black writer cum activist, Le Roi Jones, who threw away the colonial name for Imamu Amiri Baraka, because “our names tell stories/ our place get histories / Omo to so’le nu/ o s’apo iya ko”- that is, the child who scorns his heritage sets the stage for future disgrace and lament.

Edaoto at Lagos Life Series 17, Photo by Aderemi Adegbite

The Black consciousness movement which swept through the whole of the continents where Black peoples are domiciled, starting in America from the beginning of the 20^th century-movement which became fully matured resulting in the famous Harlem renaissance of the 1930s, music such as the blues and Negro spiritual was a significant component of the struggle. Together with the activities of African-American civil rights activists, who employed artists and writers of their culture to work for the goals of civil rights and equality, groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909, came into being to promote civil rights and fight African-American disenfranchisement, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL), by the Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey, who advocated the reuniting of all people of African ancestry into one community with one absolute government and the National Urban League (NUL) founded by Ruth Standish Baldwin and Dr. George Edmund Haynes, with the purpose of counseling black migrants from the South, training of black social workers, and working to give educational and employment opportunities to blacks, among other goals.

As such, Jazz music, African-American fine art, and black literature were all absorbed into mainstream culture, bringing attention to a previously disenfranchised segment of the American population while intellectuals like W.E.B Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jnr, in America including poets like Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay and musician like Bessie Smith, as well as their Caribbean counterparts like the St. Lucian playwright, Derek Walcott and his Martinique compatriot Aime Cesaire and others strive to negotiate a better and respectable personality for Africans against denigration from their white counterparts through their poems and theatre. That same call was and still is a renewed call for the embrace of and value for our being. It is a call to abandon any form of colonial and neo-colonial apparatus and way of life which are eroding our heritage in whatever form they are.

This, in itself is definitely political, especially in the instance that the call is implicated in the destiny and future of the people. While addressing an audience of French students in 1967 on why he has decided to utilize the possibilities of theatre in the advancement of the revolutionary and political agenda of the Negritude movement he founded with Leopold Sedar Senghor of Senegal and the Guyanese Leon-Gontran Damas , Aime Cesaire evokes historical, political and technical imperatives, much as Edaoto would want to do now, seeing how terribly eroded our African values are, particularly in the aspects of music and its promotion of lewd, utterly provoking and culturally empty lyrics and foreign idiosyncrasies. Cesaire declares that “politics is the modern form of destiny; today, history is lived politics. Theatre (music in this sense as Edaoto’s ‘art’ is concerned) evokes the invention of the future. It is, especially in Africa, an essential means of communication. It must, accordingly, be directly comprehensible by the people”(239-40)

Edaoto has hearkened to the call, being stung by that bee of memory, which always hums the music of “never forget” because of his belief that “the artist must be a teacher helping his society to regain his belief in itself”(Achebe), because the artist in the traditional African society is strategically placed in a vintage position to function “as the record of the mores and experiences of his time” (Soyinka) and helping his society to “put away the complexes of the years of denigration and self-abasement”(8).

The Afrogenius Band members at World Music Day 2011, Photo by Aderemi Adegbite

Edaoto understands that the true African is aware that station in life is not primary, rather, it is the degree of divine presence in the individual that matters (13). Music has always been an elegant art, a time-tested art, which not only stimulates the ears, but equally propels the soul and the entirety of being into levels beyond the mundane. In African past folklore was a source, a very distilled source of wisdom and connection for the people and their ancestry which provides a vast tapestry in which is woven in terrifying images and colours, many actions and incidents that can chill, terrify, depress and, or excite the human imagination. The Black activists knew this and so adopted it, the legendary Fela Anikulapo Kuti knew this and utilized it to the fullest in the challenge of agents of oppression - government and religious clans alike–it is just a call, a renewal of faith in the poignant weapon that never fails to reach its target – the corrupt and diseased mind.

Edaoto, might have read James for he-through his kind of music- responds to the literary critic’s submission that in situations as explosive as Africa today, there can be no creative literature(music inclusive) that is not in some way political(and) in some way protest, for, even the writer(musician in this instance) who opts out of the social struggles of his country and tries to create a private world of arts is saying something controversial about the responsibility of the artist to (his) society.(10) He knows this rather too well, judging from the vehemence of his criticism of the silence and aloofness of fellow African leaders when America, acting under the auspices of NATO and other agencies of neocolonialism and oppression invaded, albeit, blatantly the sovereignty of Libya killing Moammar Gaddafi, much as the Super power invade the privacy of other less-powerful countries of the world, and his reaction to Nigeria’s own self-styled successive Messianic leaders, whose every decisions have been nothing but irrational, chaotic and outright bereft of sane direction, much to the detriment of the impoverished masses, some of who are equally gullible.

Little wonder that at his last monthly show at Savannah Bar, a friend- carried away by the energy of his performance that was almost virtuoso except for the back-up and instrumentation, together with the scintillating rhythm he was dishing out, supported by his AfroGenius Band-quietly walked up to me and asked, “What do you make of his music?”, and I asked in return “What do you think?” He only looked at me intently and whispered, “He is a true son of the soil!”

WORKS CITED

Achebe, Chinua. “The Duty and Involvement of the Africa Writer” in Carley, W and Kilson, M. (ed). The African Reader: Independent Africa. New York: Vintage Books, 1970.

Aiyejina, Funso. Esu Elegbara: A Source of an Alter/Native Theory of African Literature and Criticism. CBAAC Occasional Monograph, No. 15. Lagos: Concept Publication Limited, 2010

Ajikobi, Dimeji. “Oral Tradition in African Literature”, Ed. Sophie Oluwole, The Essentials of African Studies. Book 2.Lagos: Xcel Ventures, 1998

Akporobaro . F. B.O. Introduction to Africa Oral Literature. 3^rd Edition Lagos: Princeton Publishing Company, 2006.

Idowu, Bolaji. African Traditional Religion: A Definition. New York: Orbis Books, Maryknoll,1973

James, Louis, “ Protest Tradition”, in Cosmo Pieterse et al (ed) Protest and Conflict in African Literature. London: Heinemann, 1974.

Khan, Sufi Inayat. Music. New Delhi: The Sufi Publishing Company,1962.

Laville, Pierre. “Aime Cesaire et Jean-Marie Serreau: Un acte politique et poetique” in Les Voies de la creation theatrale II, 1970

Ngugi, Wa Thiong ‘O. Homecoming. London: Heinemann, 1972.

Nketia, Kwabena. “Music in African Culture” in FESTAC 77. Publication of the 2^nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. London: African Journal Limited, 1997.

Ojo-Ade, Femi.”De origen africano, soy cubano: African Elements in the Literature of Cuba” in Jones, Eldred Durosimi (ed). African Literature Today. Number 9: Africa, America & the Caribbean.New York: African Publishing Company,1978

Olaniyan, Tejumola. Scars of Conquest/Masks of Resistance: The Invention of Cultural Identities in Africa, African-American and Caribbean Drama. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Onwuachi Chike “African Identity and Ideology”, in FESTAC 77. Publication of the 2^nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. London: African Journal Limited, 1997.

Sofola, Zulu. The Artist and the Tragedy of a Nation. Ibadan: Caltop Publications Limited. 1994.

Soyinka, Wole. Art, Dialogue and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture. Ibadan: New Horn and University Press, 1988.

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Lekan Balogun, award-winning writer and theatre director, is of the Department of Creative Arts, School of Postgraduate Studies, University of Lagos, Akoka.

The Susanne Wenger Foundation in Krems Austria

2012-01-21T19:22:00.000-08:00

Susanne Wenger “A great Artist and an Adventuress of the 20th Century”

According to innumerable international reports on TV, film and the print-media Susanne Wenger, who was born in the town of Graz, Austria on the 4th of July 1915, became known as the “white priestess of a sacred riverside deep within Africa”. But she was much more than that, she was one of the most important artists of post war Austria and an outstanding artist in Africa.

Because of her remote position, geographically as well as thematically, sensational stories published in Europe about her exotic and esoteric art after she moved away sometimes created misinterpretations about what she had done in Africa as an artist from Austria. She understood the philosophical message that the gods, the people and the African nature have for every human being and one side of her complex character eventually became Yoruba itself.

She lived in Nigeria for nearly 60 years mostly in the now famous stone house in Ibokun Road, Oshogbo together with her so called “spiritual family”, where she also had her studio, supporting and supported by her ritually adopted children: chief-priestess Adedoyin Faniyi Talabi Olosun and chief-priest and artist Shangodare G. Ajala. Until her death in Oshogbo at the age of ninety three on January 12th, 2009 she courageously defended all she had given to this Nigerian region and its people .

The Sacred Groves of Oshogbo in Nigeria and the works of art Susanne Wenger created could well be one of the seven miracles of the world. It all started in the 1950‘s when Susanne Wenger was called through the Ifa Oracle of the old high-priestess of Oshun, to help to restore the shrine of Idi Baba which by that time was in a sorry state of disrepair. A short time later she started work at Ojubo Oshogbo, the ancient principal temple of the river-goddess Oshun and the main shrine in the groves, which had nearly been destroyed by termites.

Susanne Wenger’s works of art, her huge cement sculptures, daringly artificial and sometimes defying architectural rules, marvellous cult shrines, houses and caves of initiation and endless walls - all depicting the metaphysical - which she created sometimes in cooperation with a group of Yoruba artists, priests and workmen (whom she called “New Sacred Art”), became eternal reality.
Through the guidance and the dynamics of working with Susanne Wenger many members of this group later became well known artists in their own right such as Adebisi Akanji, Buraihmoh Gbadamoshi, Kasali Akangbe, Ojewale Amoo, Rabiu Abesu, Saka, Alagbede Ajibike Ogun Ni’yi to name just a few.
Chief Shangodare Gbadegesin Ajala became the speaker of the New Sacred Art movement. Adebisi Akanji was Susanne Wenger’s legendary co-builder, who worked with her on most of the monumental cement sculptures that the Sacred Groves are now famous for. Ojewale Amoo was the first to join the team, Saka crafted the spiritual Market Oja Ontotoo while Buraihmoh Gbadamoshi and Kasali Akangbe created most of the sculptures in wood and stone and are now professional sculptors of excellent reputation.

Susanne Wenger’s monumental sculptures and shrines, particularly the Obatala shrine, the Ogboni sculptured shrine “Iledi Ontotoo”, the statue of Obatala greeting, the statue of Alajere dancing for Oshun, the Chameleon fence of Ebu Iya Mopoo; the monumental figure shrines of Iya Mopoo, the grandiose “Alajere Transformation Sculpture” and the sky-high figure of Ela became world famous. The lost main entrance to Ojubo Oshogbo, the gate of “The Flying Tortoise” was one of her major works and might be rebuilt one day. Fifty years after she started her work, the Oshun Groves were declared a UNESCO world heritage site.
And it will be up to the New Sacred Art Movement, founded by Susanne Wenger at first hand, to keep her heritage of sacred art in the Oshun Groves alive.

During all these years, Susanne Wenger not only protected the natural paradise of the Oshun Groves with its mighty trees along the unspoilt bends of the sacred Oshun River, but also one of the most important spiritual centres for the Yoruba culture.

Susanne Wenger, who was a well-known artist before she went to Nigeria, was one of the founding members of the famous international Art Club Vienna in 1946. She produced her first surrealistic drawings in 1943/44 after having had nightmares when the city of Vienna, where she was living at the time, was bombed in World War II. These drawings became important to a group of young Austrian artists who later became famous as “Vienna School of Fantastic Realism”.
(Her hatred against the Hitler Party was one of the topics of the large exhibition “Artists in Dark Times” 2001 in Graz, her Austrian hometown).

In 1949 she travelled to Italy , Switzerland and finally to Paris where she met Ulli Beier (who died early 2011), a linguist, whom she married and, surprising all her friends among the Austrian artists, she disappeared to the town of Ibadan in Nigeria.

In 1953, Susanne Wenger published the first ever alphabet book for primary schools in Yoruba.

In 1954 she still had exhibitions in Paris, London, Zurich and Brenda.

In 1955 Susanne Wenger moved to the village of Ilobu with Ulli Beier, prior to them settling in Oshogbo, but still visiting Ede (where they had moved to from Ibadan) to participate in Obatala rituals and to rebuild the shrine for Obatala, until the death of the charismatic Obatala chief-priest Ajagemo, whom she called her great mentor.

It was in Ilobu where she wanted to live in the circle of ordinary Yoruba village people and where she started to learn the ancient technique of Cassava batik called “Adire”. Susanne Wenger combined the „cubistic contemporary“ style of her Paris art experience with the storytelling traditional Yoruba patterns.

Until she died, she was living and working in and around Oshogbo, now the capital of Oshun State a large town of over five hundred thousand inhabitants in the middle of Yoruba land.

Initiated as Yoruba Olorisha Priestess, she was comprehensively fulfilled with the poetry, mythology and religion of the Yoruba people, without ever denying that she was a contemporary artist in every sense. The clear transcendent expression of her art comes out of religious thinking, spontaneous and free, as an expression of her universal understanding of art. Another outstanding example of her unique art are her textile-painted batiks. From the beginning of her work on the huge batiks she developed her own distinctive style, which she called „spontaneous flow “.

After 1970, when most of the major works in the Oshun Groves were well under way, she felt that she should create an innovation of her roots as a trained artist and she started a revival of her oil painting with tremendous results.

In 1982 her book “A Life with the Gods” was published, photographed by the great expert of African and World art Gert Chesi.

From 1985 on Prof. Wolfgang Denk curated monographic exhibitions of Susanne Wenger on behalf of the Austrian Government, bringing her back to Vienna to celebrate her seventieth birthday just across the square from where she had her studio forty years previously. She was decorated with the “Silver Order of Art and Science” by the Federal Republic of Austria in 2001 and the highest order of the Government of Lower Austria.

In 1995, to celebrate Susanne Wenger’s eightieth birthday, her perhaps greatest exhibition took place in the Kunsthalle Krems, Austria in the deconsecrated church of the Minorites. Several thousand visitors came to the opening, including the famous Ulli Beier, Nobel prize winner Wole Soyinka and a group of more than ten traditional Yoruba priests, dancers and drummers. Also that year Susanne Wenger established the Susanne Wenger Foundation to collect and support her art works in Krems, Austria.

There were other large exhibitions of her work including those in her hometown of Graz in 1995 and 2004, Museum of Modern Art in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Ulli Beier’s Iwalewa Museum in Bayreuth Germany in 1993 and in the Muson Centre Lagos 1996.

In 2001, Susanne Wenger was also invited to exhibit in the significant exhibition “The Short Century - Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa” which was curated by Okwui Envezor (the Nigerian curator of “documenta IX” in Germany, the most important exhibition circle of modern and contemporary art since in 1955). This exhibition was shown in Munich, Berlin, New York and the Modern Art Museum Chicago.
In 2004 she was awarded with the highest decoration of her home state, Styria, by the State Governor and also received the “Golden Award of Art and Science” of the Federal Republic of Austria.
The Kunsthalle Krems (whose founding director was Prof.Wolfgang Denk) organised another anniversary exhibition under the title of: “Susanne Wenger - Artist and Priestess – along the Banks of a Sacred River in Africa”.

In 2005, Susanne Wenger’s ninetieth birthday was celebrated extensively in Oshogbo and Lagos and large ceremonies were held in the Kings Palace of Oshogbo, in the Governor’s Palace and at her home in Ibokun Road Oshogbo. International guests where invited, a large number of traditional Yoruba priests of the highest order were present and even the Austrian National Television sent a team to cover the celebrations. There was extensive coverage in the Nigerian media and the Austrian Ambassador held a reception in his Lagos residence.

In 2008 she was given the great honour to be declared a Member of the Order of the Federal Republic by the Nigerian Government.

Throughout all these years since 1985, Susanne Wenger kept on working together with her people in the Oshun Groves, which in the meantime had been declared a National Monument of Nigeria. The annual Oshun Festival in the Sacred Groves of Oshogbo is the most important traditional religious Festival of Africa, attracting thousands of visitors and worshippers.

She was continuing her work at the most complex Ifa-Odu sculpture at a hidden place in the Oshun groves and also painting and drawing in her studio. Wolfgang Denk travelled many times from Austria to Oshogbo and Susanne Wenger visited Austria almost every year and stayed in his home and studio with him and his wife Martha, who became her special confidante.

In Oshogbo, after her sad passing away, Susanne Wenger was buried in her beloved Oshun Groves, and important ceremonies were held then and are still being held. Her spiritual family is taking care of the legacy of Adunni Olorisha (Susanne’s Yoruba name), mother and guardian of Yoruba traditions and religions.

The Susanne Wenger Foundation in Krems has been re-established with the support of the Lower Austrian Government under the Leadership of Governor Dr. Erwin Proell and opened with an exhibition of her work on the 8th of July 2011.

The purpose of the Susanne Wenger Foundation is to keep her heritage, consisting of her art and her life philosophy, alive. It is vital to collect, restore and save as much about her life as possible and provide the basis for research.

Susanne Wenger’s philosophy - about all nature as one, being part of something spiritual, the spirit of Art and the spirit of Religion as manifested in the Sacred Groves of Oshogbo.

The late Susanne Wenger, the unforgettable and outstanding Artist and Philosopher, liked to state: “Our works are maybe just leaves of the tree of life, given to the Logos, which is the sacred centre of the universe and the origin of all life.

A COUNTRY RAPED TO CARCASS AND ENDLESSLY PREYED ON

2012-01-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

(Being a review of the book Endless Roads by Ralph Tathagata)

Reviewer: Dagga Tolar

Book Title: Endless Roads

Published by: Image Books, an imprint of Image & Heritage

Year: 2011

“This rape is not gentle\ It is more violent than a metaphor” [P.8]

This is the opening lines of the title poem Endless Roads, a first collection of poems of a poet with a voice that rings with meteoric sound capable of straying the listener’ away from meaning in a romantic confront with the rich texture of his vocals and sounds. In faithfulness to the import of rhythms to poetry, which can in no way be sacrificed, which explain why those who know the poet cannot but seek to share in the pleasure of his successful visit of his written words and verses to the printer in the issuing of the book Endless Roads. Now we can see for ourselves, if his lines can only in his own voice, ring with meteoric sound. Straight away I challenge us all to find out for ourselves by grabbing a copy.

This collection Endless Roads is an interlocking thread of love, poetry and country that throws itself up as a trinity in intercourse with itself, submerged in its between, are elegies and dirges for Gani Fawehinmi[P.17], For Cyprian Ekwensi [P.20], For Sam Adile [P.21], For Oturah Abalogu [P.27]. The poet uses these deaths to tell the same story of country at war with its own making, unmaking itself at very cost that the same people must again pay with their own lives for the failure of the country that they are in no way responsible for…

Let me first quarry at the thought of the poet on what he defines as poetry and what functions he saddles on the craft, in Dynamite [P.1], the very first poem in the collection, the poet informs us that: “I do not wish to present a bouquet of reminiscences” [P.1], not when the “…robbing us of all mindfulness…” is ongoing, he tells us, we “… will never cease to hear [the poet] voice”.

In Pestilential Voice [P.3], the poet announces his manifesto, when he writes “let me seek my strength in memories\And not recollections of events”, he does not intend to just chronicle, or play the dumb historian on us all. In Five Incantations [P.2] the poet we are told must “fight and sing” he therefore beckons on “… the moon to flow in our veins instead of blood.”

The poem cannot end, Life like a Growing Poem [P.28] sees “The sea of [his] poem lies cold on the stone of silence”. But the poet who surrenders to silence, cannot even end the poem, he shudders himself out of the reach of the richness of life that goes on growing the poem nonstop. In the Tears of a Lost Poet [P.29], we meet with “…a people\Hanging upon the waters [of their own tears]\...cry of nothing\...complain of nothing\...demand of nothing\...sing of nothing\[and]…listen to the silence of the gods”, but a poet must not join this league, he must cry, his tears “…must clatter like a butcher’s knife\And cut the fingers building oblivion”. In Forsythia [P.30], the poet must as “a singer” offer tremor and quake to silence

True “…a poet\ Isn’t a messiah\ Even though I have\Answered prophesy…” [P.14] the poet own vision of words in some cases cannot be enough to resolve some contradictions. In To Wole Soyinka [P. 31] Ralph Tathagata wonders into our hearing the question “why did Christopher Okigbo abandon poetry\Conscript himself at last in the Biafran Defence Force” to brings his own prophesy to fruition or is it in recognition that questions can be set in words, but the poet who seek answers must set himself beyond and outside of words. Can this also answer for the question, “Why has Chinua Achebe adopted such a cold mien on Nigeria \Such that he exhales dispassionate breaths every mystifying morning”? Is Soyinka, indeed the whole lot of the first generation of wordsmiths any wiser from a vision that set out and armed with the alphabets as weapon, even when in the life of the mentioned threesome are too good examples to demonstrate otherwise. Can we truly conclude that they fail their original summon and must now chew their failure at impurity, with frustration at efforts wasted as “cannibalistic spirits are still prowling\ In the corridors of power…” finding for themselves alone the “paradise” for which the rest of us must pay with our “well-being”.

But what type of vision is this submission to the purity of the word, in Ralphabets [P.32], we behold the complete innocence with which “children are practicing their alphabets” in the very face of the “sulphuric” desire for “the devil English”. “Alphabets are better than thunder”, the Poet’s motto to war is completely disregarded by the Boko Harem craze for vengeance for its killed leader Mohammed Yusuf, in its choice of bomb to unravel the might of the “thunder” of the Nigeria state. As the growing list of dead victims are but fellow victims of the thunder of the same tyranny of the thunder of the state, when alive. “Bombs cannot understand the obsession of thunder”, neither can thunder rattle the bomb to submit to its will. From the foregoing nothing is clear, the Boko Harem’s aim or the enemy’ aimed is not any clearer. Is this then the sense in which the supremacy of the word, the power of the poem over all principalities high or low is established for all times?

But there is a slip, which the poet in discourse cannot disagree with, “the power of alphabets\...[to] move… blood in the rain\[And] wipe away …tears” cannot be the mere practices at “alphabets”, for no amount of words without the vision to empower and will the people in the alphabets of the possibility of change, with the conviction to stand up into the arena of struggle and storm heaven in unison with the singular purpose to democratically share the wealth of nature for the benefit of all, so long will the continuous drift into an amnesia not cease. In this sense the poet without the above vision for change, suffers a fate worse than that of the first generation of wordsmiths, for when the country finally implodes even words would suffer the unexpected condemnation into permanent silence.

Does the poet treats the theme of love, any different from how the country treats the poet both as poet and human, I join the poet to offer no answer whatsoever than state that in Fingernail [P.14] the poet opines that “Love is an idiopathic neurosis”. This seems on the surface not to make any common sense, but as things stand love is the very tonic that keeps us all going in this theatre of absurdity known as Nigeria, and yet we are incapable of putting our head into love to begin to understand how love can still happens, and we go on with our live. We are incapable of thinking love through to mean love outside of the bedmatics of love making, not when as protagonists in this act of life we are permanently in the ill, the only mercy being our slavish surrender to the brutish reign and arrangement that allow us to go on living without a heart at life and without life at the heart of our existence. And so, the poet fall over with no choice whatsoever to Reverence [P.12] “…for sex is the prayer that returns me to the whole\ Reverence and again reverence”.

The poet does not be grudge the rest of all those out there, who so choose to make their conjugal vows through the generation of a gyration of pleasing and praising noisy sounds in supplication to a divinity. Indeed history is on the side of the poet, having not stopped count of how time and time again the Holy Father even outside biblical apotheosis comes down heavy with his sack load of holy oil in spirit form with a protruding penis in Holy Communion with the praying patients. Is it that God, is in the know of the therapeutic effect of sex, or very much like us is also out to validate his own divine essence or like the man he has been made to be is taking advantage of the woman to just offload his sack load.

In the poem Crossing Iyang Bridge [P. 11] the thought of man is not an inch outside of his own selfish scheme to unburden himself and “rain” heavy “downpour” into the “open gorge”, even when the woman chooses to be partner with the man and the twosome are together, in crossing a common bridge, always it is the woman who worries her head away about the home, about how in the face of nature we are so vulnerable, “it might rain on the rock upon which we lie”, this point of crisis and possible disaster is man’s own “hope”, the rain offers an excuse to fall the self on the woman, without concern whatsoever that the woman might just feel otherwise, or worst still, men we are simply afraid to expose the fact of our own weakness in issues in relation to the affairs of the heart. In the poem Broken Wind [P.13] “…the wind break\Without a word”, if you do not know what this means, the poet waste no time to educate himself further of his quest, in words that are not any less clearer in broken words, “With words broke in the wind …” . He can only remind himself of the “seashells at the bottom of the sea” and “If you deny me the coral\I will curse the day I was born.” In this self-confession, the poet uncovers the very raison d'être of men’s failures at word, men are scared stiff at being rejected by women, they would rather not broach the subject, even a poet is not any better off here, men gross over this failure of communication by just wanting to “jump into your bottomless pit” [P.9], this fact of “rape” is further brought home, when the poet brings us to the bigger picture of the country who as a woman suffers nonstop rape at the hands of a ruling elite who seems never to ever get tired.

But this elasticity of untiring nonstop rape by the ruling elites on the country is not there for the male in his forage with female specie to draw on, for we know what the answer is when we ask the question, who the first to be tired is? And the answer comes forth with no dispute whatsoever, and yet men, we go on saying women are the weaker sex. But this is just an aside, one need return to the central thrust of what the poems suggest both in meaning unintended by the poet and in meaning locked up in the reserve of the mind of the poet unable to grapple with the right diction to untie the single motif of how we are so dissatisfied with life, that we all seek outside of ourselves to become whole, the diversion away from life and the pain its pails on us, the poet does not in anyway dismisses Karl Marx’s “religion is the opium of the people”, he pronounces sex as a long ago in use opium, very much sociologically documented. For so many, this is the only means of validating one’s existence. So we rush at it, “Intercourse is esoteric” [P.14]

But if there are complains to be made in the poet treatment of the theme of love, it is to point out that woman is completely missing as a being of her own, are reverence by man is framed on fact that “her wetness envelops the seeds” [P.12] of procreation. We can therefore only glimpse love from ends that are in relationship with love for other purposes outside of love. This fault is not of the poet’ making, for the poet has only known one manner of love that offers him “As a breakfast of love for crocodiles” [Ashes in the Wind P.23] to be devoured. Any wonder why love for so many men, is nothing but a marauding penis, jumping into “bottomless pit” and women suffer a bedlam on themselves as “beauty screws insanity” [P.14], without any choice whatsoever. Are there no safe or sane penises to do the screwing of the beauties abound, must the Beauty outside of legend, in real life also be saddled the beast? This is one question outside of the theatre of love making and copulation, what the poet refers to as “the heavy chainsaw of sticky screwing” [A Night with Remi P. 9] that makes more meaning in its transmutation into a metaphor for the country Nigeria. The interlocking thread of love thrust itself into the heart of the woman and the country, and each must necessarily be self and the other at the same time.

Poets and metaphors are friends, but then who say they don’t find time to become enemies and disagree with each other spinning a confusion that cannot coast meaning to clarity. This explains why poets are permanently engaged in a war against words, armed with no other instruments than words. And metaphors come in handy as an enriching arsenal in this long unending battle against meanings that impact nothing on life in a world dominated by the blind rage of constructs that deconstructs the rest of all of us.

Let’s now take on the country, the last of the tripod of themes covered by the collection, which grandiosely offers a standing field for both poetry and love to play themselves out, by so doing the country dialectically growing its own self into being in the field of the others, for how else can the poet have done justice to the issue of love and poetry, if the country was not fully at hand, in the same vein that the other two also avail themselves for use by country to allow the poet to bring his meaning to clarity. So it is therefore not ill conceived that the same woman is offered by the poet as the symbolic imagery in her diagnosis of the country Nigeria.

In the poem Evacuation [P.4], she completely and freely offers her whole feminine structure to the country, “Squeeze my thighs\Open my body to the sky\Pierce me whole”, you cannot but wonder if this is a self-induced orgasmic quest or the rebirth so envisioned by the same crop of ruling elites, who in their “… demented wolves and carnivores cats” [P.2] clothing devour the country to a “carcass” and yet would not let go. What cleansing is this evacuation then all about, when we are gifted with same failed historical personalities to prey us further. In the name of a second coming, the messiah burst “Open … body [of the country] to … sky” to “airs” himself into our “… twenty first century”. This is where it all ends, the vigils for change to end the years of locust and looting, the price paying of incarcerations, gunshots and killings, the death of June 12, all these rich stock of tragedy and dictatorship. The poet is not fooled; there is a handover though, a “Bleeding baby born….\ Make a ceasefire”. The dawn of a new beginning is here with civil rule, we are on the move, to the same “… nowhere\... the state of oblivion\ Where tired Generals” lay siege on the “Ballot boxes” can we expect anything less when those that need be evacuated for the country to be birth anew, sit over the process/progress as midwives .

As if this is not enough the poet is not yet through with sorrowing womanhood, in the poem Crisis of a Widow’s Destiny [P.5], this woman of a country becomes a widow. Do we mourn or rejoice on behalf for this loss of husbands, one gives up the ghost in mid-act atop the bottom wound of the apple ends from India, another with a hollowed heart suffers loads on his lean structure the syphilitic sniffing of the entire rot and failure of the country of all the others before him, with face caking off on camera, yet would not surrender the saddle, flies out, creeps in under the cover of the dark in a lifeless state, only for the country to behold his lifeless remains in green white green. To be husbanded by a rapist of a ruler is death enough for the country, but the heart of a woman is an organ of humane’ construct that she cannot but mourn the death of her husband, compulsorily when as wife they were both partners in crime.

As a country, death heralds in new suitors of rulers who would not let Hajia of a country, a 24 hours mourning period before harassing her with a “a bowl” of promises and caring that would restore her beauty, resurrect all the unfulfilled and failed dreams of former husbands and enable her to wear her long sought after crown of “the Giant in the Sun”. So on account of these sweet words, the woman allows a new husband to come atop the cream of her existence, only to so soon plainly discover that the whips of guns employed by the former husbands has now been replaced by the scorpions of “Nothing but dynamite” to explode her essence the more into nothingness, in his rabidly ravaging bid to take his turn to the full in chopping the country dry and coast home with the award of being better than former husbands. Is this not the scenario that is playing out with the attempt by the Jonathan regime to impose more untold hardship on the citizenry in the name of fuel subsidy removal?

The agony for the country is an unending one in a journey embarks on an Endless Roads. This is the title poem, and the first line commends itself to a fitting summary for the hollowed state of the country. The poet friendship with metaphor is threaten by violence that forces the latter to want to scarper but what choice do words have than to in the end submit themselves for use by the poet. The “… rape[on the country] is not gentle\ It is more violent than a metaphor” [P.8], this is on account of more ingenious ways employed by the new rulers to arrive at the same end of leaving the country prostrate.

“Nigeria are you a criminal or a martyr”, the rapist/victim being addressed, interestingly in official records, the rapists who died in office are nothing but national heroes, even the criminal of a General who fathered the destruction of his own widow first born in an air mishap to guarantee for his own first born the inheritance of his accumulated loots, earns a national burial with flag at half-mast befitting of a status of a martyr. Who then is the criminal? Is the victim, who gets “… dragged on the street\And violated in [her] pubic hair] and dangles an “axe” at our “throats” and “chopped-off [our] voice”. To say there are more questions than answers is to surrender to a cliché, when in actual fact what need to be said is that in Endless Roads, poetry indeed becomes a question, not begging for an answer for there are no answers to be sought on the pages of the memories, the sad memories of an unending tragedy, when the question posed is the country Nigeria, a country so seemingly incapable of going beyond the means of the alphabets of words phrasing the question, “When will you change” or is this a question that poetry or the elites can pose and fail, for change and transformation of society demands nothing short of a revolution organized and lead by the oppressed and suffering working masses in a struggle to dump neo-liberalism in the “dust bin of history” and replace it with an economic arrangement that nationalize the commanding heights of economy under the democratic management of the working people .

PRESS RELEASE: BornTroWay Goes To Port Harcourt

2011-08-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

PROMOTING YOUTH EMPOWERMENT THROUGH THE ARTS: THE “BORNTROWAY” PROJECT HOLDS IN PORT HARCOURT FROM 5thto 10th of SEPTEMBER, 2011

The BornTroWay Project (http://borntroway.tumblr.com/), a creative arts training initiative which is aimed at promoting individual self-confidence, self-expression, teamwork and integration among 45 youths (aged 17-25) in disadvantaged areas of Nigeria’s main cities, will hold in Port Harcourt from September 5-10, 2011.

Interested candidates and aspiring artists can register free of charge from 20th to 30th of August at the Deli Spices Fast Food, Choba and at Ritola Integrated Services on 21 Potts Johnson Street, Port Harcourt.

Auditions - for registered candidates only!!!

Auditions will hold on September 2 at the Rumueme Senior Secondary School, Port Harcourt. Workshop dates are September 5-9, 2011 at a location in the city to be communicated to the shortlisted candidates.

The Workshop which uses spoken word, music, dance and acting, focuses on the issue of “waste”; physical (our relation with the environment) and human (our undiscovered, untapped or unutilized talent). The training culminates in a mini show open to the public, which will display a performance created by the youth over the intensive one-week workshop. The show will also be attended by popular music artists from Port Harcourt in solidarity towards the aspiring talents.

BornTroWay in Port Harcourt partners with the Centre for International Volunteers for Youth Development, a Port Harcourt-based non-profit agency which is committed to remaining a point of reference for the trained youth even after the training, through mentoring and provision of rehearsal space among other things.

The Project – born from the inspiration of Music Matters (www.musicmattersafrica.org); a music movement promoting emerging and unknown Nigerian talents and Bantu (http://bantu.tumblr.com/) - is made possible thanks to the support of positive individuals, corporate entities and institutes that believe in investing in the youth and in the arts as an instrument for empowerment.

BornTroWay was piloted in Ajegunle, Lagos from May 16-21, 2011 with extraordinary results[1] (see blog http://borntroway.tumblr.com/) which are being collated in a short documentary. After Port Harcourt, BornTroWay aims to travel to other Nigerian cities (Jos and Kano), following which the best acts and artists are to be selected to take part in the production of a musical show that will tour Nigeria promoting peace and unity and showcasing the talent of our youth living in marginal areas.

The Team

Creative Directors: Petra Kron and Ade Bantu

Local Coordinator: Tony Peterson (Choba) and Biebele Wokoma (Bundu)

Instructors: Ade Bantu (music), Dagga Tolar (spoken word), Ropo Ewenla (drama),

Segun Adefila (dance)

Producer: Ilaria Chessa (Music Matters)

Information and media relations: Aderemi Adegbite 07084287828 and imageheritage@aol.com

TEAM BIO

Petra Kron (Creative Director)

Petra Kron works as a cultural anthropologist and cultural pedagogue for various productions and projects. She does the production management for KABAWIL’s dance-theatres. She developed a concept for relation-oriented cultural works and productions. She designed and instantiated projects like Framewalk and the art of chatting in collaboration with artists from various countries, like Japan, Ghana, Turkey, Israel and Germany. She has a Ph.D. (ABD) in Cultural Anthropology from Mainz University and a state board examination in Fine Arts and English from Düsseldorf University. She is a dancer and has participated and performed in various productions.

Ropo Ewenla (Actor)

Ropo Ewenla is a culture, art and media consultant with Smiling Fortune Communications. He is an actor, writer and producer. His recent projects include playing Siaman in Yeepa! Solaarin nbo, an adaption of Femi Osofisan’s Who is Afraid of Tai Solarin, and Ogunlola in Gbagan-Gbagan Yoruba radio drama. He is in the cast of Wole Soyinka’s Beatification of Area Boy coming up later in 2011, to be directed by the Nobel Laureate in person. He is a voice over artist and member of CORA, AWON and AVOA. He was the anchor of the edition of PLAY in 2009 and 2010. He is currently the Secretary General of Pen Nigeria.

AJ Dagga Tolar (Spoken Word / Music)

Aj. Dagga Tolar is a spoken word poet, writer, teacher, frontline activist, and social crusader. He is the Publicity Secretary of the Campaign for Democratic and Workers Right and the 1^st Vice chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teacher (Ajeromi-Ifelodun unit of the Lagos state branch). Dagga Tolar’s published collections of poetry include Season of Struggle (1997); This Country is not a Poem (2005) and Darkwaters Drunkards (2007). He resides in Ajegunle, a slum neighbourhood, which in no little way continues to affect and influence every sphere of his writing.

Segun Adefila (Dance)

Segun Adefila is a dance and performance artist based in Bariga, Lagos. He runs a youth dance theatre group, the Crown Troupe of Africa. The theatre company is made up of artists whose forte is the creation of new and socially relevant works. The award-winning troupe is famous for their ground breaking, unique and innovative rendition of works, which are flexible enough to be performed in conventional and unconventional performance spaces.

Ade Bantu (Creative Director / Music)

Bantu is a German-Nigerian artist who found home in music. An activist against racism and xenophobia, a fighter for Pan African unity, a traveller between continents and a man with dozens of projects, plans and ideas, Ade Bantu is always ahead of his time, from the early beginnings of Hip Hop in Germany, to the influential Brothers Keepers project, to his album Fuji Satisfaction that earned him and his band two Kora Awards (the Pan African "Grammy") in 2005 as "Best West African Band" and "Best African Band", to various documentary film projects. He is based in Lagos where he recorded his latest album "No Man Stands Alone". Bantu is – with Petra Kron – the mind behind Framewalk, sketching the concept and implementing it in many countries around the world to promote unity and self-expression through art.

Ilaria Chessa / Music Matters (Producer)

Ilaria Chessa, founder of Music Matters, produced two international film festivals in Nigeria (ION International Film Festival in 2009 and Africa International Film festival in 2010) and their related training activities. She is co-producer of a psychological feature drama titled Journeys of One and a music-based feature film titled Ghetto Red Hot aimed at promoting the music talent from Nigeria. She is the promoter of the BornTroWay project and fully donates her time and skills to it.

Music Matters

Music Matters is an Africa-based movement which recognises the centrality of music for achieving multiple objectives across the globe, including the promotion of universal love and peace. Its vision is to contribute to celebrating Africa in her extraordinary diversity through the expression and recognition of her music talents across the continent and the world over. Music Matters believes in art as an instrument for positive change in society, self-expression, teamwork and unity. Music Matters is the promoter and co-producer (pro bono) of the BornTroway Project together with Bantu Crew and with the collaboration of Framewalk. It is also the soundtrack producer for the feature film Ghetto Red Hot.

[1] Kemi Bakare (17 years) from the BornTroWay Ajegunle Team was invited to make a book review at the CORA Book Party celebrating shortlisted authors for 2011 NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature at the Eko Hotel and Suites on Sunday 14 September, 2011. About the event, Kemi posted on Facebook: “I am now a celebrity due to the way I have been treated today @ Eko hotel. If not for the borntroway project, I won't have found the courage to face d audience like I did yesterday. Thank you very much really everything.”

BANTU feat. NNEKA "I am waiting" from Relentless soundtrack by Andy Ama...

2011-02-17T02:07:00.000-08:00

SYNOPSIS OF RELENTLESS

A haunting story about loneliness, love and self-discovery that explores Africa's throbbing megacity Lagos, and the effects of war and loss.

Obi, an orphan brought up by the military, becomes a peace-keeping soldier in worn torn Sierra Leone. He meets Blessing a Sierra Leonean woman and falls in love for the first time. His world and life are devastated when he finds Blessing mutilated by kid soldiers and rebels. His only option is to kill her misery.

On his return to Lagos after the war, he is an emotional autiste, sleepless and lonely. By day he runs a small security company with Ola his best friend and fellow war veteran, at night he walks the lonely streets of Lagos haunted by his past.

In one of his midnight walks, Honey, a runaway university student and high-class call girl falls into his arms, thrown down from a bridge to die by one of her clients. Obi is thrust back into reality as he once again is carrying a woman in his arms, another victim of violence, another life to save or let die.

But Honey is alive and enters Obi's world, opening up his mind again to feelings and emotions, but also ultimately leading him into committing another murder.

It's election time in Nigeria and a powerful politician claiming to be a friend to Obi's late father hands Obi's firm a lucrative contract to provide security for his candidate.

Obi and Honey, both in personal exile and struggling to get a hold on their lives are thrust into action as a course of events draws them together in the relentless and brooding city that is Lagos today.

As Obi comes to terms with his life and reality, he embarks on a journey of redemption and self re-discovery. We unveil an intimate portrait of a man battling with the scars of war.

The film explores the vast canvas that is Lagos today ‚ powerful, dangerous, alive and uncompromising; fraught with deceptions and corruption yet thriving with hope, strength and resilience.

The film is not afraid to subtly question Nigeria’s peace keeping troops in Sierra Leone, the tragic history of Biafra, the silent plague of human sacrifice, mass government inefficiency and corruption. This is also a film that celebrates Nigeria and Lagos as an African city bustling with the energy, music, vibrant, full of culture and humanity.

Andy Amadi Okoroafor, the writer and director, born in Nigeria, pursued his education and a very successful creative career in Paris and is returning to Nigeria to fulfill his lifelong ambition of making great films about contemporary Africa for a world audience.

Visually edgy and expressionist, the film will explore the boundaries of digital cinema, embracing and harnessing digital technology to enhance good storytelling. It will be controlled, beautifully framed and composed, visually sumptuous and emotional touching, portraying Lagos and other African cities, as they have never been seen.

Relentless has an official powerful soundtrack featuring Nigerian and international artists - Bantu and Nneka "I Am Waiting"

Reviving POETRY POTTER in 2011

2011-01-27T18:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Sir/Madam,

Compliments of the season.

Happy New Year to you, may you have reason to cherish this season. As in the culture of our organization, this is the honest report of our activities through 2010.

Change of Name

Since inception, January 2006,we have produced Poetry Potter, the monthly literary and performing arts event under the auspices of Kowry Kreations Media without proper registration with CAC and other relevant organizations. We tried ourbest to retain the name at the point of registration in 2010 but wecould not cope with the rigor and process.Hence, we decided to changethe name and now we are IMAGE & HERITAGE. This name in our own opinion projects the aims and objects of the organization.

2010 Review
Last year was a mixed success for us. We recorded only two (but successful)editions of Poetry Potter and one edition of P.A.G.E.S in 2010. Thiswas the least we ever recorded in a year since 2006. And the reason forthe erratic production throughout, in spite of our conscious awareness of the problem, was the old administrative structure.

Administration
We shall henceforth produce all our projects (Poetry Potter, P.A.G.E.S,Fashion Revolution and others) under the name: IMAGE & HERITAGE. We are also registered with the Federal Inland Revenue.
Registration No: YBV130012069469
Tax Identification No: 09199816-0001
We are indeed grateful to our sponsors. Thank you as you are one ofthem.We apologize for the stress we have put you through over the yearswhenever you endeavoured to send us money for our events. We are happyto announce to you that we now have a current account with theGuarantee Trust Bank PLC; you can now send money to us from all partsof the world.

We have collaborated with reputable organizations in the past; these organizations include Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos Chapter (ANA, Lagos),Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), Center for Contemporary Art, Lagos(CAC, Lagos) Ben Tomoloju & Company, organizer of GTB PoetryFestival and others. We look forward to a fruitful and fulfilling collaboration this year.

Please feel free to contact us through imageheritage@aol.com for your query and enquiry.

OUR PROJECTS
POETRYPOTTER, a unique platform created for poets, storytellers,folksingers,folk-dancers, artists, art promoters, cultural workers andarts journalists, to display their creative ingenuity, free of charge.

P.A.G.E.S,the confluence of literature, art works, comics and photography bringstogether patriots and compatriots in dialogue with their country -Nigeria- with their art and literature. This programme is designed toalign fictional writers, poets and playwrights, arts and literarylovers at Art Exhibition Halls around the world to give literaryinterpretation to the works being exhibited and dialogue around it atall time.

FASHIONREVOLUTION - The project is targeted towards creating opportunities forless privileged and also to showcase young talent in the Fashionsub-sector of the Creative Industry. For the maiden edition, we chosethree young talented, dynamic and unlimited creative Fashion Designers,to give life to the theme:“Fashion Revolution.” We built on thesuccess, and in April 2009 we had the second edition of the fashionwhich was tagged: “Fashion Revolution Reloaded,” in collaboration withGML Entertainment at Club O2. We are proud indeed of the outcome ofthese two events and this is the reason why we are currently working onits third edition and scouting fashion designers to do justice to thetheme: “Fashion Revolution Metamorphosis.”

Our Plans for 2011
Fundraising:

Wehave come up with another concept in which you can support ourorganisation- The goal of Image& Heritage is to generate funds inorder to be able to embark on arts projects for which public funding are not available in Nigeria.We hope to raise N1,000,000 for us to be able to run our projectswithout break throughout 2011. Therefore we are looking for Two Hundredpeople to give usN5,000 ($34) each.

Projects and Time
We hope to start Poetry Potter and P.A.G.E.S by March 2011.
We intend to have an edition of Fashion Revolution (Fashion Revolution Meta-more-forces) in June.

Online
We shall keep our blog - http//www.kowrykreationsmedia.blogspot.com until we are through with our website.

We are happy to announce to you that Poetry Potter is now online. This ispart of our 5th year anniversary. You can now read some poems presentedat our previous events on this site. Also, this site we will createequal opportunities to all by publishing your poem, short drama andshort fiction works on the site.

For the maiden edition, Amatoritsero Ede is the Guest Artiste. You cannotafford to miss his account of poetry. Sage’s Rage is on the Spokenword page, OmosunSylvester, Senator Ihenyen, Plumbline (Jaiyeola Jeffrey)and Aderemi Adegbite are poets you will enjoy reading their poems onthe Poetry page.

We are open to all forms of literature and arts. Please read our submission page. Here is the link: www.poetrypotter.webs.com

POETRY POTTER - FINANCIAL SUPPORT: 2010
Toni Kan                              10,000
Ahmed Maiwada                  25,000
Mirian Travis    5,000
Ayodele Arigbabu                  5,000
Juwon Hasstrup                    10,000
Total                                    55,000

Thank you for your commitment and support in 2010 and Image & Heritage hopes it can count on your support in 2011.

Yours,
Aderemi Adegbite
CEO,
Image & Heritage Lagos, Nigeria.
Tel: +234 708 428 7828
Email: imageheritage@aol.com
Blog: http//www.kowrykreationsmedia.blogspot.com
Website: www.poetrypotter.webs.com

Marching To Aso - Poetry | Reviews | Interviews

2011-01-12T09:52:00.000-08:00

Marching To Aso - Poetry | Reviews | Interviews

CORA Holds Book Industry Conference on the ‘Bring Back the Book’ Initiative

2011-01-12T03:33:00.000-08:00

All lovers of the book, human capacity and Nigerian development are hereby invited to the 1-day Book Industry conference to discuss President Jonathan’s ‘Bring Back the Book’ initiative.

Themed WHEN THE PRESIDENT WANTS TO BRING BACK THE BOOK: WHAT’S TO BE DONE NOW

DATE – Monday 17 January, 2011
VENUE – Banquet Hall, Eko Hotels, Victoria Island, Lagos
TIME – 9.00 a.m.

According to CORA, “While CORA realises the value of the media event of 20 December, 2010 in demonstrating the full faith and weight of the President in the campaign, we take the view that the real task of building the critical citizens’ framework for its sustenance has just begun. Based on our experience in organising intellectual events around book and culture in the last twenty years, the industry has faced a lot of challenges which militate against the return to the era of robust book
production, acquisition and reading culture.” The President’s campaign can be benefitted by industry insights.

The conference will draw stakeholders from the entire breadth of the industry including Writers, Publishers, Booksellers/Distributors, Printers, Policy makers, Social Entrepreneurs and CSR officers. One of the objectives is to obtain suggestions on what steps may be taken to address the challenges of the waning reading culture, such steps including –

• any cultural/economic policies

• legal/regulatory frameworks

• market/supply-side innovations; and

• civil society initiatives.

The outcome will be the industry contribution to the 'Bring Back the Book' initiative and will be presented to the coordinators of the campaign for that purpose.

ADMISSION IS FREE! VIEWS ARE WELCOME!! OUTCOME WILL BE INVALUABLE!!!

Contact Aderemi Adegbite on 07084287828.

PRESS RELEASE/INVITATION

CORA Holds Conference On Bring Back the Book Initiative

As a follow-up to the ‘Bring Back The Book’ initiative of the administration of President Jonathan, the Committee for Relevant Art, CORA, has resolved to stage a one-day conference of stakeholders in the Book industry and the creative and educational communities to fashion out an implementable document that could guide the President and his team in the quest to encourage reading culture and as well place importance on the Book as a source of knowledge acquisition and manpower development, according to Deji Toye, CORA’s Project Director and coordinator of the Conference.

The conference holds on January 17 in Lagos and is expected to attract a fairly large congregation of stakeholders in the relevant Indus tries, including from governmental agencies, said CORA’s programme team.

The theme of the one-day conference is When the President Wants to Bring Back the Book: So What’s To Be Done Now? And it is billed for the Banquet Hall, Eko Hotels & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos; 9am – 6pm.

The ‘Bring Back the Book’ campaign had been launched on December 20 with the President joining the Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka in a reading session for over 400 students drawn from as many as 100 schools around Lagos. At the Eko Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos. The programme also witnessed the formal presentation of the book President Goodluck Jonathan: My Friends and I, Conversations on Policy and Governance via Facebook, during which about five top Nigerian hip-hop musicians performed to a crowd of about 5000 people at the new Expo Hall of Eko Hotel.

According to CORA , the January 17 conference is a desired follow-up to ensure that the dream behind the project is kept alive even as the country gradually slips into the mood of electioneering “when we tend to forget every other critical aspects of our national life”.

The conference, states CORA, aims to “Gain the insight of stakeholders in the book industry on the current practical challenges of conceptualisation, production, distribution and consumption of books in Nigeria and its impact on the reading culture; and;

i. Obtain suggestions on what steps may be taken to address the said challenges with a view to reversing the waning reading culture, such steps including –

· any cultural/economic policies
· legal/regulatory frameworks
· market/supply-side innovations; and
· civil society initiatives.

Deliberations and suggestions at the conference will be presented to the ‘Bring Back the Book’ coordinators in the Presidency. It should also provide a reference point for a pan-industry advocacy for the revival of the reading culture and the revitalisation of the book industry“.

“Participants are to be to be drawn from the entire value chain of the book industry including the following: Publishers, booksellers and book dealers, authors, printers, libraries/librarians, book and literary event organisers/promoters (book clubs, literary festivals etc), educationists, renowned corporate promoters of book and literary initiatives, book and education-focused MDAs and Nigerian Academy of Letters”, stated CORA.

The culture advocate organisation, which prides itself as ‘Culture Landscapists’, stated: “This event will be regarded as significant in at least the following three respects:

* To our knowledge, it is the first time in the last few decades that a Nigerian President has given a public, uncontroverted support to the campaign to return the book and the cultivation of its reading to a pride of place. This is significant in Nigeria where the success of any initiative often depends on a perception of interestedness or, better still, championship at the highest levels of government.
* Equally significant is that a sitting President has now drawn a link between book reading and literacy and even onward to national economic development. Trite as that connection might appear, we are not aware that recent economic recovery programmes and various visioning projects have made book reading as central to human capacity development (which has itself been often touted as core to the achievement of economic prosperity) as we see encapsulated in the above-quoted speech of the President delivered at the campaign event.
* Even more significantly, the strategy of taking the campaign ‘to town’ by the President will be recorded as a first, in which a matter of such communal significance will be canvassed on the streets before being thrown at policy bureaucrats. Indeed, Mr. President was reported as having dubbed the campaign a “citizens’ framework to bring back the book.”

“In the last twenty years, the CORA Art & Cultural Foundation (otherwise ‘Committee for Relevant Art’ or ‘CORA’) has sustained the campaign to place the book in the front burners of national debate and literacy at the heart of national development agenda. Indeed, we have always maintained our key annual event, the Lagos Book & Art Festival as a testament to our commitment that “the only way to translate the ‘teeming population’ of Nigeria into true human capital is to develop their minds” (http://coraartfoundation.org/index.php/about-cora). Mr. President’s speech at the ‘Bring Back the Book’ campaign launch shows how much consensus has now grown around this idea.

“While CORA realises the value of the media event of 20 December, 2010 in demonstrating the full faith and weight of the President in the campaign, we take the view that the real task of building the critical citizens’ framework for its sustenance has just begun. Based on our experience in organising intellectual events around book and culture in the last twenty years, the industry has faced a lot of challenges which militate against the return to the era of robust book production, acquisition and reading culture. Some of the challenges arise from the following factors:

* Standard of education and its impact on the quality of content and creative expression emerging from the Nigerian local literary community in the last few years
* Quality of technical expertise available to the industry following the exit of the multinational publishing companies and its impact on the technical quality of outputs in the Nigerian industry in the last few years (CORA has held a series of book editor’s clinics as a modest attempt to address this challenge)
* The discouraging economics of book production and distribution in Nigeria and the gradual erosion of local book printing and production in preference for Asia
* Issues of curriculum/syllabus development and quality of reading lists in Nigerian educational institutions; and
* The environment for the support of civil society efforts at promoting book and reading culture in Nigeria.

CORA states that the conference will follow the popular parliamentary style now associated with CORA-organised deliberations, although Position Papers will be presented by key stakeholder groups drawn from the following four major sectors of the industry:

· Business: Publishers, book sellers/dealers/distributors/printers
· Creative: Authors
· Educational: Librarians, teachers, school proprietors, NUC, NAL
· Promotional:
- Government (MDAs);
- NGOs/CSOs (book clubs, literary festivals, poetry salons, book fairs etc);
- Corporate donors (companies with bias for literary CSR commitments).

There will be interventions from other industry participants and from the general house.

Yours,
Deji Toye
Conference Director (+2348023624647)

NB: PLEASE, ALSO CONSIDER THIS AS YOUR INVITATION TO THE EVENT.

GLOBAL PRAYERS - Redemption and Liberation in the City

2010-12-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

metroZones, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin and Viadrina University, Frankfurt Oder (Germany)

present:

GLOBAL PRAYERS - Redemption and Liberation in the City
About new religious movements in Lagos, Beirut, Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, Berlin

Presentation and discussion at JAZZ HOLE, Lagos 17th of December, 2-6 pm

The renaissance of religious movements and communities in the world’s metropolises as it manifests itself in the expansion of Pentecostal churches, Islamisation, or Hindu nationalism – all of which play an important role in the organization of urban citizens these days – can possibly be described as a kind of urban cultural revolution.

The interdisciplinary and international ‘Global Prayers’ project aims to research and discuss new urban religious communities by different artistic and scientific means and methods. The case studies and research projects by about 20 scholars and artists link the global aspects of the religious everyday, which has become a central feature of urban life across different religions, city types and parts of the world, with the local features and practices of specific religious communities as they have been shaped by history and urban context.

How does the urban everyday life change through new religious movements? A discussion and a critical reflection on the project with local researchers and artists and activists is an essential part of the ‘Global Prayers’ project. In Lagos, a key city in the global boom of new urban religions, we would like to discuss the main questions of Global Prayers with local experts, present some first research products, video cutouts and sound pieces from Beirut, Mumbai, Kinshasa and of Lagos itself. There will be a presentation of the works of the video workshop, organized by Jens Wenkel and Victor Okhai, as well as of the first tracks by the Hip Hop Workshop, initiated by Ade Bantu.

The public presentation and discussion will take place at JAZZ HOLE, 168 Awolowo Road Ikoyi, LAGOS 17th of December, 2-6 pm. Everybody who is interested is cordially invited to attend! The event is supported by Goethe Institut Lagos and Heinrich-Böll-Foundation Lagos.

Further information:
johannes.ismaiel-wendt@hkw.de
www.GlobalPrayers.info

Bantu ft Azadus - Marching To Aso

2010-12-01T06:14:00.000-08:00

Artist: Bantu feat. Azadus

Title: “Marching To Aso”

Label: Faluma Records / Pako Records

Producer & Director: Siji

Bantu bursts right back unto the Nigerian music scene with his controversial new video ‘Marching To Aso’.

Taken from his new album, No Man Stands Alone, the video follows Bantu as he makes a rallying call to the masses to march and confront the powers that be in the nation's seat of power, Aso Rock.

The bold and visually arresting video, was shot in Ajegunle, a local district area of Lagos and home to over 4 million disenfranchised Nigerians from various parts of the oil-producing volatile nation.

The clip was produced & directed by Yoruba soul star: Siji.

Check out Marching To Aso:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jac1dHFCpBY

www.bantucrew.com

www.facebook.com/bantucrew

www.myspace.com/bantucrew

twitter:bantucrew

Order “No Man Stands Alone” online: www.faluma.com

Killing ME The More

2010-11-22T04:20:00.000-08:00

As you may be aware, the 12th Lagos Book and Arts Festival (organised by the Committee For Relevant Art - CORA) was held in National Theater, Iganmu, Lagos, Nigeria from Friday 12th - Sunday 14 December, 2010. On Sunday 14, Jelili Atiku protested against the current National Gallery of Art Bill (NGA Bill) through a performance he titled, NGA Bill…Kill Me the More. The Bill has becomes a symbol of social and political realism in Nigeria.

When the bill was brought to the Senate by Hon. Tunde Akogun, it reminds me of Guerrilla Action Group’s manifesto of January 10, 1970. The manifest said that Art is guilty of the worst sort of crime against human beings: silence. Art is satisfied with being an aesthetic/machinery, satisfied with being a continuum of itself and

its so-called history, while in fact, it has become the supreme instrument through which our repressive society idealizes its image. Art is used today to distract people from the urgency of their crises. Art is used today to force people to accept more easily the repression of big business. Museums and cultural institutions are the sacred temples where the artists who collaborate in such manipulations and cultivate such idealization are sanctified.

Jelili's concern in the performance was to express his personal and collective concerns over some bills in Nigerian Senate. Therefore, he wish to educate, appeal, urge and protest for change in the Nigerian socio-political lives.

Here is the letter he addressed to members of the Senate. The letter was published in the performance information brochure.

14th November, 2010

From the Office of the Citizen

Open Letter to Members of National Assembly, Federal Republic of Nigeria

To:

All Members,

Senate and House of Representatives,

Through:

Senator David Mark (GCON),

The Senate President; and

Dimeji Bankole (MON),

The Speaker

Dear Fellow Nigerians,

NGA Bill…Kill Me the More

It is saddened that as I write this letter you may not able to see and feel the problems I am going through. There abound several visible and invisible barriers that have collectively pressurize my life as a Nigerian contemporary artists. Since 1998 when I completed National Youth Service; each day I grow grey hair as a sign of emotional infiltration that I have gone through in an attempt to survive as a Nigerian and as an artist.

I have felt the pains and effects of inequality and poverty since I was born. I see in every day that passed how Jose Ortega y Gasset’s views made in 1958 has been holding sway in our socio-political lives. As you may have read, Jose wrote in an article, titled “The New Mass”(published in Joseph Satin (1958), “Ideas in Context”, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, page 16) that “Today something very different is happening. If we observe the public life of the countries where the triumph of the masses has made most advance… we are surprised to find that politically they are living from day to day. The phenomenon is an extraordinarily strange one. Public authority is in the hand of a representative of the masses. These are so powerful that they have wiped out all opposition. They are in possession of power in such an unassailable manner that it would be difficult to find in history examples of a government so all-powerful as these are. And yet public authority – the Government- exists from hands to mouth, it does not offer itself as a frank solution for the future, it represents no clear announcement of the future, it does not stand out as the beginning of something whose development or evolution is conceivable. In short, it lives without any vital programme, any plan of existence. It does not know where it is going, because, strictly speaking, it has no fixed road, no predetermined trajectory before it. When such a public authority attempts to justify itself it makes no reference at all to the future”.

The manifestation of Jose’s view came once again in form of NGA proposed bill. As you aware, this bill, which is sponsored by Hon.Tunde Akogun is “an act to repeal and re-enact National Gallery of Art Act, Cap. N41 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria and other related matters”. On Thursday, November 5, 2010 a hearing was held inside 028Conference Hall, House of Representatives (New Building), Abuja in regards to the bill. The Stakeholders have talked and reached harmonious resolution on the bill. My present financial ailment could not permit me to attend such a gathering. However, it will not be OUT of ORDER to read in part this bill. It reads: “BE IT ENACTED by the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as follows… Every contemporary visual work of art originating in Nigeria or not originating in Nigeria but is being sold or auctioned or exhibited for sale in Nigeria, shall be registered, stamped and issued a number by

the Gallery…”

The philosophy, idea, objectives, and contents of this bill reminds me of the Guerrilla Art Action Group’s (of New York City) manifesto of January 10, 1970. It says, “Art is being slaughtered… Art today glories in its own self-importance and its false set of value. It glorifies property instead of relating to people. It has become

property. Art has become business, a stock market, a repressive and racist megacorporation that enriches its directors and stockholders and exploits its workers to a point of complicity in the crimes committed against human life… What do you think art is all about? Is it some sort of mythical abstract commodity that is traded on the market and guarded by the police? How can it be that art needs police protection? Only “valuable” possessions, property and money are given police protection – is that what art must be? Is property more valuables than life and freedom? Shouldn’t art relate to life and freedom rather than property?...”

This bill and those that conceived it see art as commercial entity. Its values of life and freedom are not appreciated by them. They do not bother about the growth of contemporary art and the wellbeing of the artists instead; they wish to regulate how we create our works.

Forty-three years ago, March 25, 1967 precisely, the then Nigerian Military President in person of (then) Lieutenant Connell Yakubu Gowon threw up an advice for Nigerian leaders. He said in a radio broadcast that “Our duty as leaders is not just to pursue ideologies of forms of government for their own sake… concern is the happiness of the ordinary citizens. We must therefore look at matters concerning how we should run the government in the light of how they affect people’s lives. We must always assess how the political decisions that we reach will influence the way our people live… Nigeria has been going through hard times… Governments have fallen and often people have not known where to look for guidance and honest leadership. In the absence of true leadership mistrust and suspicion have come to the surface and as a result people have been killed; women have been left without husbands and children without fathers”.

I wish to appeal to your honourable selves to look at this bill as a political means of executing artists. I want to beg, the bill should be looked into critically and amend to make us happy. However, I wish to say also instead of bothering yourself over this bill, I am of the opinion that the Freedom of Information Bill (FoI) is more important to us a State of different nations. This is because going by the level of corruption in the country the FoI bill is necessary and indispensable.

As opinionated by Chidi Anselm Odinaka (in The Guardian, Tuesday, November 4, 2008, page 102) “The existing system of secret government in Nigeria undermines the promise of equality and non-discrimination in our constitution and substitutes in its place a hierarchy of citizenship distinguished by monopolies of knowledge and access to officially-held information. An infinitesimal minority of well placed people with access to information constitute the superior class of citizens; while the overwhelming majority of us are inferior, second and lower class citizens consigned to an information under-class. Through the existing system, we have an artificial manufactured information aristocracy who use their monopoly of access to official information to control the commanding heights of our economies and politics, protected by their control of the security apparatus in a perpetual game of the revolving intra-family musical chairs while the rest of us in the information wilderness watch in rumour mills of trepidation. The default doctrinal justification for the secret state is state security. This is used in a way that subverts our constitution and our politics and destroys our development. It is both immoral and unlawful. Changed here is in the self interest of both ruler and the ruled”.

Let me also borrow words from Charles Ikedikwe Soeze (who wrote in Nigerian Compass, Friday June 6, 2008; page 4) FoI “is prerequisite for good and just governance and for effective social development”. If it is signed into law Nigeria will become an egalitarian society-where extreme poverty, child mortality, under-development, segregation, political apathy, electoral fraud, and all those ills that dwarf our economy will be eliminated.

If the NGA Bill is signed into law, you shall be killing me the more.

Yours living art,

Jelili Atiku,

29, Ifoshi Road, Ejigbo, Lagos Nigeria

Jeliliatiku03@gmail.com, atikuolorunfunmi@yahoo.com

+234 802 315 5408, +234 805 935 8116

www.jeliliatiku.webs.com

No Man Stands Alone" is now available worldwide

2010-10-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Hurray!

"No Man Stands Alone" is now available worldwide. The album was released today by FALUMA - Worldwide digital release.

To buy your softcopy, please following this link: NO MAN STAND ALONE on FALUMA

ABOUT THE ALBUM

“No Man Stands Alone” is an album that tells a story which is very personal and yet also widely known among travellers and cosmopolitans. It is the personal story of Bantu, a man who returns to the country of his father where he spent his childhood until he left for Germany.

It is the story of a man who returns to a once familiar place as a visitor, as someone who just knows a bunch of people there. However also knows that each of these friends will open him a door to a whole new world.

It is the story of a man who just goes with the flow in the bustling city of Lago. Who adapts to the rythm of the metropolis and it’s people. Who lets himself drift, but with an aim in mind. With music on his mind.

Story of a musician who meets other musicians in the land of Juju music, who produces and sings, features and get featured, who gives and takes and travels on with a new song in his luggage.
Therefore the title: “No Man Stands Alone”!

The new album is a musical journey throughout Nigeria with a side trip to Ghana in ten songs. Each of these songs reflects an encounter with an artist, like for example the internationally renown MOBO awardee, singer and actor Nneka, the 84 year-old legend of Highlife music Fatai Rolling Dollar, the young and eccentric guitarist Dabyna, the Ghanaian superstar Wanlov the Kubolor and many more.

Not only musical, but also lyrical wise this album is diverse and reflects many facetes of every-day life, not only in Nigeria: sociocritical and intelligent food for thought, as well as tunes that will make you dance, swing and sing.

CALL FOR ENTRY EXTENDED TO 20TH SEPTEMBER, NO AGE LIMIT

2010-08-26T05:07:00.000-07:00

Heinrich böll Stiftung, Nigeria office is pleased to extend the call for
essays/short stories and photographs competition for a publication on the theme “Unity in Diversity: Diversity is positive for Nigeria”. This is part of the Foundation’s contribution towards addressing the recurrent and protracted conflicts in Nigeria rooted in diversity issues.

Attached is the call for entry document. Deadline for submission is extended to 20th September 2010. Feel free to circulate it amongst your networks and contacts.

We look forward to receiving your essays/short stories and photographs on the above theme.

Call for Essays/Short Stories and Photographs

For a Publication on:

UNITY IN DIVERSITY: DIVERSITY IS POSITIVE FOR NIGERIA

The Heinrich Böll Stiftung is a German political foundation, affiliated to the Green Party Germany. The Foundation is engaged in civic education worldwide with 28 offices. The Foundation was named after the writer Heinrich Böll (1917-1985) who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novels and short stories in 1972. His courageous and unerring intervention significantly enriched and influenced political culture in Germany. He personifies the values the Foundation now stands for: the defense of freedom, civic courage, tolerance, open debate and the valuation of art and culture as independent spheres of thought and action.

The Conflict Management Program of the Foundation’s Nigeria office emerged as a response to threats at Nigeria’s democratic processes (see www.boellnigeria.org). As part of the Foundation’s contribution towards addressing the recurrent and protracted conflicts in Nigeria rooted in diversity issues, the proposed publication should underline the positive role the rich diversity of the country can play and explore ways of transforming the current negative social cohesion into a common strive for development.

This call for essays/short stories and photographs on the theme: “Unity in Diversity: Diversity is positive for Nigeria” intends to:

- Encourage Nigerians to be part of a solution to the recurrent diversity related violent conflicts in the country.

- Explore new ideas/strategies to solve the incessant violent conflicts.

- Provide a platform for citizenship participation in the quest for sustainable peace in Nigeria.

The essays/short stories should concentrate on:

- Telling a true-life story of how the diversity of Nigeria’s people enriched your personal, your families or your friends’ life and explore how the positive aspect of diversity could benefit Nigeria’s social and economic development

- Drawing conclusions from your own positive experiences to develop new ideas/strategies for integrating the positive role of diversity into the social and political structures

- The role of future generations of Nigerians to ensure peace is sustained in the country

The photographs should

- Concentrate on the theme “Diversity is Positive for Nigeria” and include a brief description of how the photograph depicts the theme

Send entries to: competition@boellnigeria.org

Word Count: Not more than 3000words. Quotes and references must be clearly marked as such and properly cited at the end of the text

Format: Texts are accepted in the following formats: word or pdf, they must be in English language

Age Limit: No Age Limit

Deadline for submission: Extended to 20th September 2010

Notification: Selected entries will be notified in October 2010

Further Information: Heinrich Böll Stiftung

16a, Oladipo Diya Street

2nd Avenue Extension

Roselyn@boellnigeria.org

http://www.boellnigeria.org/
A jury of Nigerian writers, conflict experts and photographers will select the best entries which will be posted onto the Foundation’s website and published as a book. There will be an official presentation ceremony (date to be communicated) followed by a short expert roundtable discussion. Note: We reserve the right to modify the format and content of the submissions for publication purposes.

Rewards:

- A 5-day trip to Berlin / Germany to participate in an arts festival and educational event organized by the Foundations head-office for the overall best entry!
- The selected essays/short stories will be rewarded with N 25 per word up to a maximum of 3000 words.
- The selected photographs will be rewarded with N 30,000each

Quotes on “diversity” by Nigerians:

Ola Joseph, Nigerian author: “Diversity is not about how we differ. It is about embracing one another’s uniqueness”.

Toni Kan, award winning writer: “I drew inspiration, anecdotes and ideas from the diverse nature of my country, Nigeria. My thesis was that by focusing so much on what divides us, we fail to see the ties that bind. The world we live is no longer delineated by clear cut boundaries. We have become a true global village and it is more evident in Nigeria where travel, the imperatives of work and survival as well as inter-tribal marriages has blurred the lines of division.”

Prof. Albert Oluwole Isaac, internationally renowned conflict expert from the University of Ibadan defines diversity as “human differences in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, ideology or social class. It calls attention to the fact that human beings are not born the same and even when they are, some environmental factors make them to have diverse social, economic and political orientations. However, diversity is like a budding flower with many beautiful petals that complement each other in adding beauty to the environment. It is therefore an asset to any nation. For example, diversity makes it possible for Nigeria to be one of the most culturally significant nations in the world. This could be seen in the variety of languages, food, dresses, songs, festivals and cultural sites in the country”.

Ade Bantu, Musician: “As a Nigerian-German, I consciously embrace the best of the world and my continent. Diversity is my reality, yes, it is challenging and demanding, at times, but I have learned that as long as I am open, curious and willing to go extra miles, there is so much of ‘me’ to be discovered in the alleged ‘others’.”

Roselyn Onyegbula, HBS Program Manager, Conflict Management: “Diversity is like a human being, each with a distinct finger print but with other common features that make us all human. Nigeria is a very diverse nation, to draw strength from our diversity we need to focus on our commonalities and not differences, to move the country forward.”

Sangodare Ajala won the National Art Competition 2010

2010-07-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

African Artists' Foundation is happy to announce the winners of this year's edition of the annual National Art Competition which held at the Civic Center Lagos on Wednesday, 21st July, 2010. The grand finale was well attended by art livers, art practitioners and corporate individuals.

The winners are:

1st prize winner- Sangodare Ajala- N1,500,000
2nd prize winner- Stanley Dudu- N1, 000, 000
3rd prize winner- Fidelis Odogwu- N500, 000

All thirty finalists will however be part of an all expense paid workshop on a date to be announced shortly.

Sangodare's work

The Fire of Nigeria Burns Strongly

My artwork is inspired by the oral traditions and myths that I was born into: that of the Yoruba people. But the meaning transcends any single religion or belief.

When our forefathers settled in Osogbo they were looking for water. The hunters went into the forest and they came to the Osun River, but the Goddess Osun of the River said, “Do not settle here.” So they went to another place and again the Goddess said, “Do not settle here.” They lit a fire, and they danced around the fire and they saw that the fire healed people. The Oba saw that the fire of lamps cleansed and healed, so they settled in Osogbo. They found peace. It was a new beginning.

I chose to represent Nigeria at 50 through this artwork because its’ symbols are universal. It is a about our beginning, as a country, and to continuous new beginnings. It speaks of joy, peace and strength.

Fire is a strong element: without fire there is no life. Fire cleanses; it heals; it prepares us for change and new beginnings. The fire of Nigeria burns strongly.

Today, just as our forefathers before, Nigeria is looking for peace and good forward movement at 50. We pray that our fire is not quenched. We dance for happiness and freedom in life.

A poetic song by TOSIN OTITOJU

2010-07-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

I am glad to share with you a poetic speech delivered by Tosin Otitoju few days back at her formal school - Queen's College. She is the newest author (author of Comrade, poetry collection) in the Nigerian literary sub-sector of the creative industry. O, it was a day I am not sure I cannot forget soon because of its musicality. A young future leader nudges the upcoming leaders who are still undergoing the necessary tutelage to pass on the torch to greatness.

Text of a Speech delivered by Oluwatosin H. Otitoju (FRM)
as Guest Speaker at the Annual Speech and Prize-Giving Ceremony of Queen’s College Lagos on 3rd July, 2010

Pass on the torch
Still brightly gleaming
Pass on the hopes
The earnest dreaming
To those who follow close at hand.

My warmest greetings to all: our distinguished guests (naming them), as well as our distinguished hosts – the students and staff of Queen’s College Lagos.
Since 1927, the Queen’s College torch has been passed on.
Eighty-three years - that is four generations. That is, of the earliest classes of QC girls, some may have had grandchildren whose granddaughters have become QC girls. So we -

Pass on the thoughts,
The skills, the learning
Pass on the secrets
In most yearning
That they may build where we have planned.

The words of a poem. The lyrics of a song. When Miss Dorothy Peel wrote these words, how did she know that the most beautiful ones are not yet born? That where our set planned would be where your set built the house? That our biggest accomplishments would be but a starting point for your set?

Your dreams will be bigger. Isn’t there a lot to excite you as you look around and see a world filled with delicious problems that your ancestors have not solved?

The effort of your forebears over the last fifty years has yielded a democratic state. Still, in this government for the people, the percentage of people served and the quality of this service both need to be increased by orders of magnitude.

In Lagos, we have seen the recent miracle of road-improvement projects, refuse collection, urban beautification. Still I am sure that we can envision a still more beautiful environment with functional public architecture, excellent mass transit, with flowers everywhere.

Yes, your dreams must be bigger than ours. In particular, your dreams must be bigger than money. I like the phrase “poverty of ambition.” As Obama put it, “There’s nothing wrong with making money, but focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself...”

Pass on the songs
Pass on the laughter
Pass on the joy
That others after
May tread more lightly on their way

I hope that you always remember these words. Remember to sing, to laugh. Remember to play (do you need to be reminded to play?) Remember to dance a little. Keep the tradition of Queen’s College ladies as joyful and fit, as we -

Pass on the faith
That naught can alter
Pass on the strength
Lest they should falter
In hours of stress some future day.

We are pilgrims now. We’re on a journey now. We tread lightly, joyfully on our way. We who have studied the Bible and reflected on the Qur’an. We preserve our faith.

For you, my young sisters, this is not even enough. Draw strength also from the Bhagavad Gita. Read also from The Origin of Species. Take a lesson or two from ‘Things Fall Apart.” Do you hear the wisdom in DaGrin’s flow? How do you feel about God and religion? Comment on non-local interactions in quantum science. Who can quantify the vastness of the known cosmos?

In short, get what the giant of African-American history W.E.B. DuBois referred to as “intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it.” This is the sound education for which YOU must strive.

Pass on the firm determination
To guide a later generation
By gentle influence in the home

It may be true that a woman has a domestic role. In days past, fitness for the domestic role was the entire purpose of a woman’s education. The home. Home economics, essentially.

But some things have changed. In those days, few people went to school. Now, many children will be raised primarily in schools. Now, many fathers, men, will participate in raising their own children. These days, you as a woman need not divide your day between scrubbing wooden utensils – along the grain! – and cutting patterns for your next party dress. There is a machine for the wooden spoon, and we all know where to shop for the dress.

With home tasks outsourced, shared, and mechanized to such a large extent, you, we, women, are called outside the home as well as in. There is a public sphere, is my point, and how could you not want to stamp your mark on it? Let everybody know: I was ‘ere in class and style.

As a young woman, you are invited to be a politician - of the excellent kind.
Or to be an actor and make us dream.
Be a scientist – they are not just people you read about in books, they are flesh and blood like me.
Be a teacher, and guide that later generation.
Be a sculptor; be something we haven’t heard of before, or do something traditional - but do it with style.
Be a man. I’m not saying don’t be a woo-man. I am saying you can be omo-seggsy if you wish, or even if you’re big-bosomed and nurturing, or you’re shy and sensitive, or you’re this short and fragile and you love pink, pink everything, when it comes to greatness, feel free to be a man.

If ever good advice was given, it was Rudyard Kipling’s poem titled “If”:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But give allowance for their doubting too…

Some of you must know the rest. The poem ends:
…Yours is the earth and everything in it,
And – which is more - you’ll be a man, my son.

Be a great woman!

While I was a student here at Queen’s, our PQC Marinho instilled the following words, ascribed to the 19th century writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept were toiling upwards in the night.

Pass on the health, the youthful vigour,
Pass on the love that can transfigure
The darkest hours that yet may come.

We’re on a journey now. We’re on a journey now. The little we have we have passed on to you.
The little strength they have, your parents have passed on too, in the hope – no, in the certain confidence – that you are greater than they are. Although I am a little older than you, I recently lived with my parents. Let me tell you what I found: Parents will worry.

A story: once I was at lunch with two North American executives, in Detroit, Michigan. We were eating in the company cafeteria when one man complained about his teenage son, bemoaning that the young man was not motivated. The other man replied, “Bill, you know, there are many ways to skin a cat. Maybe your boy is just doing things a different way, that’s all.” To this he said, “Daniel, you’re talking about skinning a cat. I just hope my son knows there’s a cat to be skinned.” They laughed. Lunch continued.

Across cultures, parents really can’t stop thinking and talking about you. They care about you. They will worry.

Some girls here will like to beg their parents (yes?) for less worrying and more listening. Parents, if you will listen to us, you may discover that we care even more about the future than you. We know that there is a cat to be skinned. We’re boiling the water, we have filed the knife, …
Before this gets too macabre, I’ll continue…Poor cat!

The love that they have, your teachers have passed on to you. It takes a village to raise a child. It takes bursars and matrons, Principals, language teachers and business teachers, artists and scientists. Here at Queen’s College, the teachers – the Principal and all the staff – give you their all everyday, so that you may be prepared, not only when things are easy, but for the tough hours that yet may come. Cherish their love, and I say to our parents and teachers: Thank you.

To our dear students, I say, take advantage of Queen’s College. Make effort. Some of you are winning prizes today because of the effort you have made. Some of you are winning so many prizes today, that we’ll just have to wonder – how? How do you do it? (Answer : The heights by great men reached and kept… )

Some of us are not there yet. But we’re on a journey. And I quote this student favourite, attributed to Benjamin Cardozo: “In the end, the great truth will have been learned, that the quest is greater than that which is sought, the effort finer than the prize, or rather, that the effort is the prize, the victory cheap and hollow were it not for the rigour of the game.”

Bill Clinton liked that quote in his student days and I kept it as my laptop screensaver for many years. The effort IS the prize.The truth that I know, I have passed on to you. With a great sense of history and a great sense of hope, I ask you finally to sing with me, the final stanza of our school song:

Pass on the torch, the cry inspiring
Unites us here in hopes untiring
In bonds no future years can sever
We forward press not backwards turning
That this our torch more brightly burning
May yet pass on and on forever.

pret-a-partager exhibition and participating artists talk @ CCA, Lagos.

2010-07-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

Indeed, Lagos art scene is really booming, for its constant provocative ideas and activities within the city. Art is fastly becoming a major sub-industry to be reckon with in the Creative Industry of Lagos. Lagosians are surely embracing this new development. Kudos to all the gallerists, curators, and art organisations that are championing this movement.

Do come along. There is a space for you too to fill as an artist, art practitioner and arts manager. This International Art Exhibition is holding tomorrow at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, gallery.

prêt-à-partager
a transcultural exchange in art, fashion and sports

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos has gained worldwide recognition for its dynamic and innovative programming of solo and group exhibition of artists from Nigeria, Africa and from around the world. As we continue our programme in celebration of fifty years of Independence we present the second exhibition in our focus on Art, Fashion and Identity.

We are please to be Nigerian venue of an African wide touring exhibition prêt-à-partager organised by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. (ifa) and presented to a Lagos audience in partnership with Yaba College of Art and Technology Fine Art Department, Goethe Institute, Lagos and African Art Foundation.

Following an invitation by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. (ifa), seventeen artists from Africa and Europe came to Dakar in November 2008 to engage with fashion, identity, history and movement in a ten-day multimedia and interdisciplinary workshop. The artists brought influences from Berlin, Kinshasa, Dakar, London, Stuttgart, Douala, Hamburg and Johannesburg with them to the Senegalese capital and together developed projects in a wide variety of artistic genres. The artworks created during the workshop – such as photographs, films and video, sound and room installations – will be on display for two years in Africa in the prêt-à-partager exhibition.

After the premiere in Dakar in September 2009, it has been shown in Maputo, Mozambique, before its forthcoming presentation in Lagos. The tour will continue to east and south Africa. prêt-à-partager exhibition is a transnational artistic dialogue on fashion, sport, Africa and its Diaspora.

These collected works take the varied meanings and possibilities of clothing and fashion as determined by society and individuals and explore them in myriad ways that go beyond their function as consumer goods or economic factors. The Dakar metropolitan area serves as the stage for the protagonists of a world in constant flux, where concepts of identity are fluid. The artists have utilised the tapestries of their own history and familiarisation with new cultural practices to develop striking works, hybrid creations which are socially explosive.

PROGRAMME SATURDAY 3RD JULY 3PM

prêt-à-partager
a transcultural exchange in art, fashion and sports
Artists’ talk: 3rd July2010 at 3 pm at Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos
Opening : 3rd July 2010 at 5 pm at Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos

An exhibition organised by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa)

Exhibition sites:

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos
9, McEwen Street, off Herbert Macaulay, Sabo, Yaba, Lagos
Opening hours : Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm

Gallery of the Yaba College of Technology
P.M.B. 2011, Yaba, Lagos
Opening hours : Monday to Friday, 9 am to 4 pm

African Artists’ Foundation
54 Raymond Njoku Street, off Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos
Opening hours : Monday to Friday, 11 am to 5 pm & Saturday, 12 pm to 5 pm

NATIONAL ARTS COMPETITION: CALL FOR ENTRIES

2010-06-16T04:22:00.000-07:00

Nigerian Breweries Plc and African Artists’ Foundation present the third edition of the annual National Arts Competition in partnership with Dana air (official local airline of the competition), Goethe Institut, Society for Nigerian artists, Bogobiri House and Transcorp Hilton Abuja.

To commemorate Nigeria’s Golden jubilee, the theme of this year’s competition is:
“Chronicles of a Great Nation at 50”

Participating artists are required to interpret their vision of Nigeria at 50 through various art media.

There are fantastic cash prizes to be won in this competition:
3rd prize – N500, 000.00
2nd prize – N1, 000, 000.00
1st prize – N1, 500, 000.00

ALL VISUAL ART GENRES are welcome, and the competition is open to all budding and emerging artists.
Finalists in the competition will be selected to be part of an all expenses paid art workshop.

*Video Art *Multimedia *Painting *Sculpture *Installation *Photography *New Media

Participation is limited to ONE entry per artist, however artists may enter the competition in more than one genre, in which case artists may send in ONE entry per genre.

*For entries in Photography, please send an image that is representative of a complete body of work.
*For entries in Video, please send in clips not exceeding 3 minutes in length.
**Please note that artists who send in more than one image per genre or more than one entry under different pseudonyms will be automatically disqualified**

To submit an entry, please send an image of your work to: NIGERIANBREWERIESAAF@GMAIL.COM
Along with your details as follows:
- Official name in FULL - no pseudonyms or nicknames. Please indicate surname.
- Genre of work entered into the competition (Painting, New media, etc)
- Telephone number(s)
- Email address
- Home address
- Current location
- A brief description of your work (Artist Statement)

The deadline for submission is 6pm on the 15th of June 2010.

Please spread the word!

For more information:
www.africanartists.org
01-7450750

6-story Jesus statue in Ohio struck by lightning

2010-06-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

Story curled from YAHOO NEWS

MONROE, Ohio – A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.

The "King of Kings" statue, one of southwest Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

The fire spread from the statue to an adjacent amphitheater but was confined to the attic area, and no one was injured, police Chief Mark Neu said. The fire department would release a monetary damage estimate Tuesday, he said.

Travelers on Interstate 75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by the roadside, but many said America needs more symbols like it. So many people stopped at the church campus that church officials had to build a walkway to accommodate them.

The 4,000-member, nondenominational church was founded by former horse trader Lawrence Bishop and his wife. Bishop said in 2004 he was trying to help people, not impress them, with the statue. He said his wife proposed the Jesus figure as a beacon of hope and salvation and they spent about $250,000 to finance it.

A Call for Entry

2010-06-08T06:20:00.000-07:00

Call for Essays/Short Stories and Photographs

For a Publication on:

UNITY IN DIVERSITY: DIVERSITY IS POSITIVE FOR NIGERIA

The Heinrich Böll Stiftung is a German political foundation, affiliated to the Green Party Germany. The Foundation is engaged in civic education worldwide with 28 offices. The Foundation was named after the writer Heinrich Böll (1917-1985) who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novels and short stories in 1972. His courageous and unerring intervention significantly enriched and influenced political culture in Germany. He personifies the values the Foundation now stands for: the defense of freedom, civic courage, tolerance, open debate and the valuation of art and culture as independent spheres of thought and action.

The Conflict Management Program of the Foundation’s Nigeria office emerged as a response to threats at Nigeria’s democratic processes (see www.boellnigeria.org). As part of the Foundation’s contribution towards addressing the recurrent and protracted conflicts in Nigeria rooted in diversity issues, the proposed publication should underline the positive role the rich diversity of the country can play and explore ways of transforming the current negative social cohesion into a common strive for development.

This call for essays/short stories and photographs on the theme: “Unity in Diversity: Diversity is positive for Nigeria” intends to:

-Encourage future generations of Nigerians to be part of a solution to the recurrent diversity related violent conflicts in Nigeria.

-Explore new ideas/strategies to solve the conflicts through youth-led solutions.

-Provide a platform for citizenship participation in the quest for sustainable peace in Nigeria.

The essays/short stories should concentrate on:

-Telling a true-life story of how the diversity of Nigeria’s people enriched your personal, your families or your friends’ life and explore how the positive aspect of diversity could benefit Nigeria’s social and economic development

-Drawing conclusions from your own positive experiences to develop new ideas/strategies for integrating the positive role of diversity into the social and political structures

- Considering the role of future generations of Nigerians to ensure peace is sustained in the country

The photographs should

-Concentrate on the theme “Diversity is Positive for Nigeria” and include a brief description of how the photograph depicts the theme

Send entries to: competition@boellnigeria.org

Word Count: Not more than 3000words. Quotes and references must be clearly marked as such and properly cited at the end of the text

Format: Texts are accepted in the following formats: word or pdf, they must be in English language

Age Limit: 18years to 35years

Deadline for submission: 31st August 2010

Notification: Selected entries will be notified before 9th October 2010

Further Information:

Heinrich Böll Stiftung
16a, Oladipo Diya Street
2nd Avenue Extension
Roselyn (at) boellnigeria.org
Heinrich Boell Foundation Website

A jury of Nigerian writers, conflict experts and photographers will select the best entries which will be posted onto the Foundation’s website and published as a book. There will be an official presentation ceremony (date to be communicated) followed by a short expert roundtable discussion. Note: We reserve the right to modify the format and content of the submissions for publication purposes.

REWARDS:

-A 5-day trip to Berlin / Germany to participate in an arts festival and educational event organized by the Foundations head-office for the overall best entry!

-The selected essays/short stories will be rewarded with N 25 per word up to a maximum of 3000 words.

-The selected photographs will be rewarded with N 30,000each

QUOTES ON "DIVERSITY" BY NIGERIANS
OLA JOSEPH, Nigerian author: “Diversity is not about how we differ. It is about embracing one another’s uniqueness”.

TONI KAN, award winning writer: “I drew inspiration, anecdotes and ideas from the diverse nature of my country, Nigeria. My thesis was that by focusing so much on what divides us, we fail to see the ties that bind. The world we live is no longer delineated by clear cut boundaries. We have become a true global village and it is more evident in Nigeria where travel, the imperatives of work and survival as well as inter-tribal marriages has blurred the lines of division.”

PROF. ALBERT OLAWALE ISAAC, internationally renowned conflict expert from the University of Ibadan defines diversity as “human differences in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, ideology or social class. It calls attention to the fact that human beings are not born the same and even when they are, some environmental factors make them to have diverse social, economic and political orientations. However, diversity is like a budding flower with many beautiful petals that complement each other in adding beauty to the environment. It is therefore an asset to any nation. For example, diversity makes it possible for Nigeria to be one of the most culturally significant nations in the world. This could be seen in the variety of languages, food, dresses, songs, festivals and cultural sites in the country”.

ADE BANTU, Musician: “As a Nigerian-German, I consciously embrace the best of the world and my continent. Diversity is my reality, yes, it is challenging and demanding, at times, but I have learned that as long as I am open, curious and willing to go extra miles, there is so much of ‘me’ to be discovered in the alleged ‘others’.”

ROSELYN ONYEGBULA, HBS Program Manager, Conflict Management: “Diversity is like a human being, each with a distinct finger print but with other common features that make us all human. Nigeria is a very diverse nation, to draw strength from our diversity we need to focus on our commonalities and not differences, to move the country forward.”

AMP – House of Discord – Season ONE

2010-06-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Few days ago, I was listening to a TV report on a particularly new group for Nigerian film producers, ANCOP - Association of Nollywood Core Producers, and its members condemned the opperations of AGN, saying that it's an association of hooligans and unserious minded people in the Nigerian film industry. This story was written last year, I have decided to publish it here since my last post was on cinema. You can see the contrast in the reality of the indsutry.

As soon as I came down from a bike at the entrance gate of NCAC Artistes Village, an extension of National Theatre, I saw pioneer actors and actresses of Nollywood leant upon jeeps parked serially along in the premises. At first number of jeeps parked and the crowd of artistes surprised me, since the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) is no more in the premises. But a colleague told me that the presence of the artistes in the premises is nothing than an election for new executives of the Association of Movie Producers (AMP).

They were said to have moved from the Film Cooperation, which is not quite at a distance from the village to continue their electoral process, when the office closed for the day.

As my mission at the village is never to participate in the election neither am I an observer, I decided to mind my business. Well, I had scheduled a meeting with an art administrator earlier in the day at the Village, and as soon as I find my way in, I saw the fellow sipping a brand of beer from a glass-cup at the mini-bar behind the Little Theatre. Adjacent to the mini-bar is an open-ground where AGN normally audition for films some two years before they moved to their new office in Surulere, and there were actors and actresses in twos, threes and fours, having cheerful discussions with themselves. While some five of them sat round a table with seemingly documents for the election on the table. Having a full understanding of this kind of arrangement, I concluded that this must be the electoral board representative.

Having seated beside my colleague, the operations of the electoral board and the electorates for the AMP election were vivid from the mini-bar.

Some minutes after I had finished my meeting with the colleague of mine that we started noticing a different look on the faces of a while ago cheerful artistes in the premises. Out of my curiosity, I stood up; moved closer to the artistes and on getting into there midst I realized that there is bottled anger in some of them. Somebody asked, “why would they disqualify Lilian Amah?” behind me. I quickly looked towards that direction and I saw a round belly fellow who was later identified as Tony, on his feet, Paul Obazele and Lilian Amah, glued to their sit and some other unknown (to me) artistes around them. “Whatever happens you are still the president,” Tony said, referring to Paul Obazele, the current National President of the association.

Now the mood has changed completely and the unease pacing and whispering in the premises send a signal, which was later to be understood by me rashly. Suddenly, Paul Obazele pulled himself up from the seat and went towards the entrance of the village with his face laced with anger. He returned not quite long, alone, and Tony went to the electoral board representatives to challenge them. There were seconds of argument between him and the board before he started screaming “everybody come and cross check your name now…this list is doctored,” the list which was later to be recognized as the accreditation was protected by the electoral representatives from been touched. And artistes started approaching the table one by one. Within a twinkling, a crowd surrounded the table, argument ensued, the table got turned upside down by Femi Ogedenge, who coarsely ran towards the mini-bar, he got hold of a bottle and brook it. Approaching the table again with a sharpen edge of bottle, Tony, Fred Amata, Franca Brown, and some other artistes blocked his way with soothing words. But then, season one of the “AMP: house of discord” had began.

“Where is Ifeanyi Ikpoenyin running to, he started this, he should stay” Paul Obazele said pointing his finger at a jeep zooming off the premises. Few minutes later Madu Chikwendu, President Producers Guild, movie producer, director and organiser of the Lagos International Film Festival (LIFF) arrived with two armed “mo-police,” and started shouting, “where are those who say this election will not hold…where is Femi Ogedenge,” but the Madu could finish pronouncing the name, the fierce producer charged at him and a serious uproar brook. The policemen couldn’t arrest anybody realizing that they are artistes. They couldn’t stop the fight that ensued neither. The scene turned to two fighting scenario: Femi against Madu, Sosa furiously slapped Dickson Iroegbu, also threw pouches at Madu intermittently, Tony threw a wrecked chair at Madu. All the while, I peeped from behind Tope Babayemi’s jeep parked at a corner. The ace art and culture manager, Tope Babeyemi, is busy settling the dispute but was unsuccessful despite his continuous shout “don’t spoil this place! Sosa stop this shit!”

Although, the lyrics of Asa’s song “Fire on the Mountain” reverberated in my head continually as the show went on, but “if I run away who will report this discouraging attitude of the men who control our presently world acknowledged industry”–Nollywood–was a question that beamed through my mind. As I pulled down the thought of running for my dear life, similar lyrics of a song by Daddy Showkey echoed in my heart: “fire dey bone wall no run,” I smiled and concentrate more on the show.

Now seated in the mini-bar, Femi Ogedenge, Sosa, and other artistes chanted aloud: “Paul is the best!” twice. As I tried to catch a glimpse of this scene from where I was hiding, some heavily armed “mobile-police” came down from a vehicle, running after everybody and shooting aside at the same time, unfolded another scene. The whole place scattered. Nobody told me to run for my dear life at this point in time, because I realized that Ben Johnson was just opportune to be a track-lane athlete, if he is to be a street runner, really with my moves ahead of the policemen on the August 5th, 2009, I would outran him.

Ode Dance studio took hostage of many of us–the onlookers. We were in the studio for close to thirty minutes until one of us called somebody with her moble phone, she was told that the policemen left. awhile ago. Indeed, the artistes had equally gone with the policemen too by the time we were out from the studio.

Well, this exhibition of frivolity is no big deal as far as I’m concern. It is just a typical of Nigerian leaders in all spheres. They usually lost all sense of reasoning when post and money is involve. The culture of throwing chairs in both the house of Reps and the house Senate is eminent with our political leaders. But theatre is a scared venue and these warring producers of our film industry, Nollywood, should know better.

THE STREET CINEMA CULTURE

2010-04-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

Through the 60s to late 90s in the entertainment history of Nigeria , cinema plays a vita role. Cinemas are mainly found in the cities. Lagos , as the former capital of the country, has the largest and biggest, and these are always well populated by people who want to see foreign films, from Hollywood to Bollywood and Japan . Historically, artistes in Nigeria have not yet started documenting their creative ingenuity in the form of film for commercial purposes.  Hubert Ogunde and Ola Balogun who made their films in the 60s got their commercial successes from the cinema, although production costs were really huge.

Since Nigerian artists, as championed by Mr. Kenneth Nnebue with Living in Bondage in 1992, started documenting their own histories–folk-tales, fable-stories and fictional stories on tapes and cds for commercial purposes–Nigerians have come to feel at home with their own histories being documented and they troop out to see them in the cinemas. Although, they still appreciate the foreign films. Indeed, this culture of going to cinema to see both old and new films has drastically changed.

The Casino cinema in Alagomeji, Yaba, Pen Cinema in Agege, God Dey Cinema in Ajegunle, Odion Cinema on Lagos Island, Jebako cinema in Idi-Oro, and of course the Studio Cinema in Mushin are all presently ordained venues for church crusades and services. Some are under many years lease to the church that occupies them and others are completely sold to the church owners.

After a decade of the dead cinema culture in Nigeria , Ben Murray-Bruce the former Director General of the Nigerian Television Authority(NTA), and presently the Chairman of Silverbird Group, invigorated the cinema culture by building two cinema centres, Silverbild Galleria and The Ozone. And several cinema outfits suddenly sprang up like a cobweb afterwards. City Mall, Civic Centre and The Palms cinemas are a few of the Nigerian 21st century cinemas.

Today, Nigerians who can afford the elitist cinemas, that is the new city cinemas, pay between one thousand and two thousand five hundred naira to see either new or old films in the new age cinemas. But those who cannot afford the money troop out at night to watch films of their choice on the streets of Lagos . Actually, the street cinema has not erupted from a vacuum, it came out from the new marketing strategy by the film-sellers, scattered on the streets of Lagos .

Returning from work every night, I see a multitude of people crowding before a mini TV set, which is normally placed on a high shelf, to see a film – from the Island to the mainland and the suburbs of Lagos. At first I had thought that these sets of people were those who had no home to return to– the scavengers, the cart-pushers, the load-carrier, but when I began to take proper notice of the bulk of these street cinema goers, I realized that most of them are responsible people, with office jobs in some cases.

However, when I asked a couple of friends and neighbours about this development, some were of the opinion that anybody who could stoop low enough to see a film on the street at night when he/she should be at home resting for the coming day’s job is not responsible in anyway whatsoever. Some on the contrary agreed that there are responsible people amongst them, but they had this to say: “I cannot do it!” One even asked me if I could do it for any amount of money and I flinched.

Ideally, one cannot talk about this decadence in our entertainment life without pointing a finger to the Satellite TVs, which became the first source of cinema culture breakdown before its resurgence under Nigeria entertainment business men. The story is different now that if you cannot afford DSTV, which usually come with big dish when the satellite television newly came in the 90s, you can now buy HITV, a Nigerian own company.

But as a low income earner, if you struggle to buy satellite TV decoder, either DSTV or HITV and it cost five hundred naira to fuel your mini-generator every night, why would you not decide to join the street cinema club?

Is it now that the effort of Nigerian filmmakers is being recognized worldwide that the entertainment industry, film in particular, should be faced with this kind of plague? “No!” will be my candid answer if asked.

PHCN, an offshoot of NEPA has proven not to be the answer to our epileptic electric power problem, which is the foundation stone on which the street cinema culture is built. Although, campaigns have started on the “light out Nigeria syndrome,” the popular tendency is “LIGHT UP NIGERIA,” which appeared on I-report website, an arm of CNN.

Indeed, if the “responsible” amongst the street cinema goers can have light to watch their films at home, they will rather buy the film than to join in the promotion of street cinema culture which is detrimental to the growth of our film industry and the cinema culture.

P.A.G.E.S presents Deola Sagoe and Odili Ujubuonu

2010-04-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

In keeping to the promise of producing series of entertaining and thought provoking art events this year, it's with elation we at Kowry Kreations Media announces another edition of P.A.G.E.S, which holds on April 24th, 2010 at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos.

Pinar Yolacan, a fashion designer and photographer, will be discussing the conceptual ideas behind her works exhibited at this edition of P.A.G.E.S in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Art. The panelist include Deola Sagoe, an International Fashion Designer, (explore Deola Sagoe's creative world via her company's website: www.deolasagoedesign.net ) and Odili Ojubuonu, an award winning creative writer and author of two books.

P.A.G.E.S is the confluence of literature, art works, comics and photography. This programme is designed to create dialogue between fictionists, poets and playwrights around the world by providing literary interpretation to the works being exhibited at a given gallery or art-space.
The exhibition launches with a light reception at the CCA,Lagos gallery space on Saturday 17^th April, where press and guests will be invited to view the works and meet with the artist.

Artist Bio
Pinar Yolaçan was born in Ankara, Turkey in 1981. She attended London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and Chelsea School of Art and Design, and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Cooper Union in New York City. She has participated in several international exhibitions including most recently Dress Codes, the 3rd ICP Triennal of Photography, International Centre for Photography, New York, (2009), Tracking Traces KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, (2009) In the light of Play CCA,Lagos at Durban Art Gallery, Durban, and 2nd Johannesburg Art Fair, South Africa (2009), Turkish Realities: Positions in Contemporary Photography from Turkey, Fotografie Forum International Frankfurt, Germany (2008). She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and Istanbul, Turkey.

Exhibition Programme
To coincide with the programme CCA,Lagos will be hosting a three day workshop on fashion and photography, in which artist Pinar Yolacan will guide participants in conceiving and realizing work(s) that will go on to be exhibited within the CCA,Lagos library space as part of our Fashion, Art and Identity series. The workshop will take place from the 19^th- 21^st April 2010, for more information please contact Oyinda Fakeye at info@ccalagos.org or on 07055680104, spaces are limited.

Our established P.A.G.E.S event which invites artists and writers to discuss work from our exhibitions will be held on the 24^th April 2010, featuring a panel that includes; designer Deola Sagoe and writer Odili Ojubuonu in conversation with the artist Pinar Yolacan. The event will start at 3pm prompt and be followed by light refreshments.

CCA,Lagos is located at 9 Mcewen Street, off Herbert Macaulay, Sabo, Yaba, Lagos

The Lagos Arts Scene

2010-03-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

There is a lot happening this weekend on the arts scene of Lagos. And I am in the middle of it all as an artiste and arts manager.

That Sunday morning, Nigerians woke up to the shocking and horrific news of the killing of innocent children and defenceless women in Jos again. We have seen the horrifying pictures on the pages of newspapers, on television and on our computers via the internet of human beings dismembered and their guts spewed out.

This orgy of mindless killings and violence against women and children, indeed against anyone, only diminish our humanity and should be condemned in the strongest terms.

Rhymes and Reasons for JOS is a literary protest – an avenue for creative people, celebrities and citizens who shape opinions and set trends to lend their voices and speak up against the massacre in Jos and other parts of the country.

Rhymes and reasons for Jos has no political or religious undertone; it is the convocation of people who believe in the power of the word in whatever form – spoken, written, rapped or sung.

Come with a poem.
Come with a story.
Come with verses and choruses.

Please join other literary minds and celebrities to add your respected voice to this campaign against this man’s inhumanity to man.

Date:Friday, March 19 2010

Venue:Bogobiri House,9 Maitama Sule, Off Awolowo Road (by Falomo Shopping Complex), SW Ikoyi, Lagos.

Time:6.00pm – 8.00pm prompt.

The African Artists' Foundation (AAF) in partnership with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Schlumberger Nigeria Ltd. present a female-only exhibition titled "50 Years Ahead; Through the Eyes of Nigerian Women", in commemoration of Nigeria's golden jubilee. Through this exhibition, the AAF is drawing the focus to Nigerian women, giving them a platform to express their vision of our great Nation, 50 years ahead.

Join us as we celebrate our women in the premier edition of a series of annual women artists' exhibitions at the Civic Center, on the 20th of March 2010.

For more information please contact the African Artists' Foundation on 01-7454750, or send an email to info@africanartists.org or visit: http://www.africanartists.org

The Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) is honoured to celebrate Mabel Segun at 80 with an ARTHOUSE FORUM, one of the prime programmes of the organisation. Though belated, the organisation insisted on setting up this celebration as a mark of appreciation of her unquantifiable contribution to the birth and progress of Nigerian contemporary Literature and the Arts.

The Forum, which has the theme “Promoting a Closer Cooperation between Our Literature and Our Motion Picture” will hold on March 21, 2010 at 2.00 p.m. prompt and the venue is National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos. The theme is inspired by what is consider as one of the watermarks of her illustrious career, which seeks at all times to establish a link between the various arms of the arts.

As you already know, the Arthouse Forum is periodically organized to discuss hot burner issues in the arts.

The above-stated theme is to allow the panel of discussants and the audience to debate the apparent absence of cooperation between Nigeria’s Home Video industry and her Literature in view of the leading positions of both forms within their respective artistic traditions in Africa. Some observers have argued that the younger art, the Home Video industry, is the loser for not having related more closely with our Literature in view of the quality of the latter and the pattern in other cultures with older motion picture industries.

Can Nigeria’s motion picture producers learn something from our works of Literature? Is the ‘text-to-screen’ model the next breather that the motion picture industry badly needs to mount its next growth curve?

The discussion promises to be interesting and enriching as discussants will be drawn from both industries as well as informed observers of the arts.

REVIEW – P.A.G.E.S

2010-03-05T03:46:00.000-08:00
By Aderemi Adegbite

In the quest to constantly come up with innovative ideas, Kowry Kreations Media collaborated with the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA, Lagos) on the project: P.A.G.E.S. This is a platform created for artists and writers to dialogue with their art and literature. This project is designed to assemble fictionist, poets and playwrights, arts and literary lovers in Art Exhibition Halls around the world.

This project started in February 2009. It is geared towards giving literary analysis to works being exhibited at the Centre and initiate dialogue around the works during each exposition. The project has been a thought provoking experiment since inception.

The photo exposition – Like A Virgin was the first to work with on this project and it was quite incisive due to its probing nature and the central theme that dealt with homosexuality. This give room for the discussion of bi-sexuality treated in the book: ‘Walking with Shadow,’ written by Jude Dibia. For the first time, the Nigerian art and literary audience was faced with the reality of sexuality, womanhood and human existence in both Zanele Muholi and Lucy Azubuike photography works. Gabi Ngcoba and Bisi Silver co-curated the alien exposition for the Nigerian contemporary art circle.

The World is Flat was another interesting theme to work with but posed difficulty in sorting for the book that could best treats the issue of mapping and locations around the world in the Nigerian literature. But then, a newly published book by DADA Books, The Abyssinian Boy, which its central theme was multi-cross-culture, became the canvass on which the discussion was laced.

The larger percentage of the audience were dazzled by Toni Kan’s knowledge and appreciation of the art during Trash-ing, an exposition by Kainebi, in collaboration with CCA, Lagos. The most reveling aspect of the edition of the project was that a lot of people got to know that Toni Kan – banker and writer - and Charles Onwordi (RIP), prolific graphic artist are blood brothers.

It was challenging bringing together for the first time, two writers from different genres – fiction and poetry. Teju Cole, a US based art historian and the author of ‘Everyday is for the Thief’ entangled in a contrast dialogue with Jumoke Verissimo, a Nigerian based writer, the author of ‘I Am Memory’ during the exposition – Identity: An Imagined State. The pioneering video art exposition which was co-curated by Oyinda Fakeye and Jude Anogwih tackled the theme of African identity, migration and racism. And this served as the fabric on which discussion on cross-cultural issues affecting not only Africans but the world in entirety was woven. Members of the audience were made to realize that complex is an international phenomenon and a thing of the mind, by both writers.

Achievement

The platform has succeeded in letting writers and artists see a core connection in their respective works. On the writers’ side, P.A.G.E.S gives them a new interpretation of their works through art works – paintings, photography, installation and video art. It was interesting to know that the 2008 NLNG Literature Prize shortlisted writer, Jude Dibia, read for the first from his award winning book ‘Walking with Shadow’ at this event. The author was surprised at how Aderemi and Hansi brought out a new perspective of his book in their effort to making it relevant to the theme of the exposition. With this, Aderemi Adegbite, the curator of this project established that book should not be limited to the main theme it explores but its sub-theme at times could be stronger.

The 22 year old author of the most ambitious book that recently won two prizes in the just concluded Abuja Literature Festival, Onyeka Nwelue, is currently working with a US based Dane visual and film artist Lesse Lau on the film of his book. The Oscar Award nominee film producer and the author of ‘The Abyssinian Boy,’ met during the exposition of The World is Flat, the second edition of P.A.G.E.S at the centre where they discussed the volatile issues surrounding the meridians of the world map and its intricacies.

LAMENTATION OF AN ARTS MANAGER

2010-02-26T03:52:00.000-08:00

To be Arts Manager of substance, one needs to be subtle, gentle and persistent, these are the good qualities and on the other hand, brutality is a virtual which needs to be applied as at when due. Because if you do not apply it, your image or personality may be rubbish and the project you are trying to safeguard may be a thing of the past through the name of being a partisan manager. Arts Manager needs to be tactful too to be a successful one.

As an Arts Manager, I created Poetry Potter in 2005 and it commenced in January 2006. It’s been a monthly platform since then for both young and old artistes and arts enthusiasts, to express and enjoy themselves. It’s fun being around at every edition of the project.

This project at least runs close to seven times in a year and at times more than that. But for the first time since the inception of the project, I am confronted with the reality of funding.

Well, one will ask: where were the funds you’ve been using from inception come from? And it will be interesting to know that I solely funded the project with my money throughout 2006. I was able to gain people’s confidence in the project and they started contributing monetarily to the progress and continuation of the project since 2007. However, my personally financially contribution towards the production monthly is more than what I get from my sponsors so to say. This reflects in the organisation’s annual financial report every year since 2006.

For the fact that January is a significant month in the history of the project, I managed to produce the last month edition (33rd edition) of the project, against all odds. And I immediately started advertising the February edition afterwards to make it a memorable one. But as the day close by, I realized that there is no fund available to produce the show and so, I announced to the fans and fellows of both the project and organization that this month’s edition is dicey. And so I was given the go ahead to conceal the event.

Here was the message I sent in cancellation of the programme:

It's with great regret we announce to our wonderful fans and friends of the family that the much advertised and talked about Love Edition of POETRY POTTER will not hold for a common reason which is 'LOGISTICS.'

Please bear with us. We promise to bring this event back on track soon and big (even bigger).

We are indeed sorry for the inconvenience.
Thanks for being there for us.
Thanks for your understanding.

Tears flew through my heart while I was writing the above text because I felt pierced with a spear through my heart as I typed each one word which summed up the statement of cancellation. It’s indeed sad to want to produce a show and there is no fund available. I look forward to the day I will my first grant to produce a project.

OUR COLLABORATORS

In the meantime, I will like to thank our collaborators since the commencement of operation of Kowry Kreations Media in 2006 till date.

Committee for Relevant Art is a group of artistes, art enthusiasts, art promoters and art writers committed to the development of the Arts of Nigeria and their enabling environment.

The Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) came to life on June 2, 1991. It's a culture activist organisation with the agenda to facilitate creation of an enabling environment for the flourishing of the contemporary arts of Nigeria, in the forms of Literature, Theatre, Fine Art, Movie, TV Programme Design and Production as well as Music. In these past 17 years, CORA has been at the forefront of championing the major issues that have shaped – directly or otherwise – the cultural landscape of Nigeria. The members operate as a body of facilitators of the sharing of ideas through the creation of the sort of interactions that lead to the birth of ideas or sharpening of existing ideas. Some of the most forward looking initiatives in the Nigerian culture environment came out of CORA-organized fora. CORA has carried on this intermediation role through the vehicle of its various programmes, projects and activities.

CORA According to Prince Claus Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) is a unique Nigerian organisation that creates spaces to engage the public in debate on cultural issues. Started in 1991 as a non-profit, non-governmental activist organisation, CORA’s aim is to explore all legitimate means to create an environment for the flourishing of contemporary culture in Nigeria, in particular to make the arts a lively, social and enjoyable experience for all people especially the young generations and to create a culture-friendly society.

Revolution Media, one of Nigeria's most dynamic media companies, the company’s focus has always been about youth empowerment with initiatives that are no different. The specialty of this company is to help young entrepreneurial to take their financial destinies in their own hands. This in view that in many other countries around the world, visual design and communication is almost the exclusive preserve of young people.

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA,Lagos) is an independent non-profit making visual art organisation set up in December 2007 to provide a platform for the development, presentation, and discussion of contemporary visual art and culture.
CCA, Lagos will prioritise new media and experimental visual art practice such as photography, animation, film and video, performance art, and installation art, which have been under-presented in contemporary Nigerian artistic practice.

It will present a diverse programme of exhibitions, workshops, talks, seminars, performances and film screenings. CCA, Lagos will focus on Nigeria and the West African Region in addition to collaborating with other African and international organisations, artists and curators.

CCA, Lagos consists of an art space and a visual art library.

ANA LAGOS
There was creative writing being before in Africa before the emergence of a Nigerian literature. It was with the rise of the Nigeria-Cyprian Ekwensi, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, J.P Clark Christopher Okigbo, Mabel Segun, T.M Aluko, Flora Nwapa, Gabriel Okara, and Elechi Amadi-the African literature came into its own as a categorical enterprise for the rest of the world to appreciate. It was not a fluke.

Nigerian creative writers have contributed to some of the most positive elements to the international image that Nigeria has acquired since independence in 1960. They have attracted grand international visibility and respect to the country through their outstanding creativity and by winning all the accessible international literary prizes: First prize at the 1962 All-Negro Festival for arts, Commonwealth Prose and Poetry prizes, BBC Drama, Poetry, Short Story and Folklore prizes, Noma award the Booker prize and the Nobel Prize.

The Lagos chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors remains the most vibrant amongst the 36 chapters, including the federal capital city, Abuja. In 2007, Kowry Kreations Media collaborated with ANA Lagos to a pay a tribute to an active member of the association and the chapter.

GML Entertainment Company – the runner of Club O2, a club with special interest in the promotion of entertaining arts and improvement of youth in the Cultural industries, an adjunct of the Creative industries at large.

HEV/Snap PICTURES is an emerging company with bias for the still picture and motion pictures.

Capricorn Tents and More, an event management company.