Do Not Resuscitate… A Harvest of Shared Dreams and Journeys

(culled from the Brochure of the 13th Lagos Book and Art Festival, LABAF 2011)

Yes, as Programme Chairman for the Committee for Relevant Art, CORA, and ostensibly the accounting officer for the programming content of the Lagos Book and Arts Festival, LABAF, I, on behalf of the festival’s working committee, plead guilty to the oft-repeated accusation that the Visual Arts had often appeared shortchanged in the Festival’s overall scheme.We have been here 13 times, and we have garnered almost as many knocks for always subjugating the Fine Arts; sometimes making this critical segment of the festival appear like an afterthought in the festival’s programming vision. Of course, the Festival itself -- by the design of its birth -- is biased to Literature and Book-related events.

True Confession: At conception in 1999, LABAF started in our minds as a Book Fair, at most a celebration of the Written Word as an essential of the core objective of “facilitating the growth of the human capital resources of the nation”. Perhaps this was because the festival itself -- though a response to the national call for celebration of Creativity as expressed in the Federal Government declaration (now regrettably abandoned) of every September 14 as National Creativity Day -- was largely inspired by the legendary personage of the father of contemporary African novel, Prof Chinua Achebe, in whose honour the declaration was made that year, 1999.

But hold it there!!! And this is a digression….

Guilty as we would readily plead in CORA, we could still boldly say that the VISUAL ARTS was NOT – even at the outset -- completely out of our projections as a key content of the festival. Though we thought more strongly in terms of LITERATURE, we always had the Visual Arts as a necessary partner in the Festival twin-dimensional content – Book and Art.

CORA in particular, has always been strong in identifying with the cause of the Fine Arts, afterall, two of the founding members of the organisation are Fine Artists –  painter and arts writer, Tunde Olanipekun aka Lampex, who ran Baffles Gallery, one of the most active exhibition centres of its time in the 90s; and painter, art critic, now a professor of art history, Chika Okeke. The other founding members who are no less very strong friends of the Fine Arts are: the founding President of CORA, actor, TV producer  Yomi Layinka; the Magazine designer, Production Sub-editor, Jossy Ogbuanoh and the Earth Scientist, Arts columnist, Toyin Akinosho, who is chief visioner of CORA.

Over the years, and in fact since its birth in June 1991, which happened to be located in the often referenced ‘golden era’ of Visual Arts boom (the late 80s through mid 90s), CORA has been part of the discourse around the vocation of Fine Arts, including being a constant presence at many of the programmes of the then very active Society of Nigerian Artists, SNA. CORA had also served as witness to and promoter of (and to an extent, facilitator of) the emergence of some of the Art Schools (which semantically means the Fine Arts departments of tertiary institutions) that have come to be constant presences on the Visual Arts scene in the last decade and a half – Auchi, Nsukka, Ife, Yaba, Zaria, Benin and others.

On occasions, CORA had also discussed issues around Visual Arts at some editions of its quarterly Art Stampede (some odd near 150 now). And more importantly, many of the supporters of the CORA as an institution, and as well participants in many of its programmes are Visual Artists, who have indeed been quite active even in aspects of organisations of the various programme initiatives.

And to boot, at least  four of the CORA 18-member Board of Governors/Patrons/Trustees  are Fine Artists – the painter, Chinwe Uwatse, the sculptor/painter, Ndidi Dike; the metal sculptor/art teacher, Olu Amoda; and the painter/poet, Nkechi Nwosu-Igbo (who I shall further referenced later in this reflection). Four other members are Art Collectors of immense reputation – Chief Frank Okonta, president of the Art Galleries Association of Nigeria, AGAN and founder Nkem Gallery, Lekki; Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi, renowned collector/patron and founder of the Yussuf  Grillo Pavilion in Ikorodu;  Chief Sammy Olagbaju, the banker, collector, who, with Chief Gbadamosi  and Okonta, is on the board of the Visual Arts Association of Nigeria, VASON; and Ambassador Olusegun Olusola, an avid patron of the arts and founder of the Ajibulu Moniya Gallery. Moreso, Dr Paul Chike Dike, the former Director-General of the National Gallery of Art, NGA, is on the Governing council of CORA.

Back to LABAF and the Visual Arts…

So, I was saying that the Visual Arts had always been part of the Programme projections of the three-day festival. I recall that on our 3rd anniversary in 2001, we indeed collaborated with the Lagos chapter of the Society of Nigerian Artists, SNA, led by the painter, art teacher, Kunle Adeyemi, and had a rewarding Visual Arts segment that featured two giant works (from the shrine installation series) by the legendary Bruce Onabrakpeya at the festival then held at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos. Since then, we have been collaborating with diverse studios to stage remarkable Fine Arts show at the festival.

At LABAF, our Children segment always featured a robust session of visual arts workshop in painting, drawing and textile making for the young ones, often facilitated by the volunteer trainer, Wale Asubiojo and his friends under the supervision of founder of Children and the Environment, CATE, Sola Alamutu.

Yet another quick digression:

The project coordinator (who deservingly should be called the Festival Director) for this edition, Ayo Arigbabu, is an Architect and Graphic Designer, who is also a co-founder of theLagos Cartoons and Comic Carnival, LC3, which until the last two editions was a regular feature in the Festival programme.  The designer and Executive Director of our chosen venue,  Freedom Park, the architect, Theo Lawson, is a CORA Board member. There is also Uche Nwosu, the painter/Art critic, and former Head of Research at the National Gallery of Art, is a CORA member.

Well, so much for redemption of CORA’s credit as a Visual Arts-loving organisation.

Visual Arts and the LABAF…

Over the years, we have worked with the ArtZero on about two editions with the ceramicist Ato Arinze as coordinator; we worked with the Photographers Association of Nigeria, PAN led by Tam Fiofori to mount a collection of photographs that included timeless headgear images of the octogenarian, JD Ojeikhere; we worked with a body that promotes competition among fine arts undergraduates  that presented works of students from tertiary institutions that were in competition in its yearly show. We have always worked with the National Gallery of Arts, NGA, which always extend sponsorship to aspects of our programmes aside from helping with exhibition facilities. We have had a remarkable collaboration with the ‘conceptionist’ Jelili Atiku and his scientist-artist partner, Washington Ubah and a couple of their comrades to display works in the post modernist temperament. .

Jelili Atiku has indeed been a revelation in the life of the LABAF; he is known to come up with concepts and installations that I must confess sometimes confound some of us in the organising team, but which always turned up to be crowd-pulling at the festival. I recall his outing in different editions of the festival :  Free the Press (installation sculptor, 2006); Poverty in Row (installation sculptor, 2007); Nigeria Dangles From A Gallows (installation sculpture, 2008); Agbo Rago (performance art, 2009); the NGA Bill: Kill Me The More (performance, 2010) & Governor General (video art, 2010).

And now to the present…

The Edge Studio had always been dream-sharers of the CORA. We have had robust engagements over the years in the discourse of contemporary arts.  We subscribe to the ideal that our contemporary arts must move beyond the extant norms, beyond the familiar to new ideas that interrogate the time-tested (hopefully not time-worn) tradition of painting, sculpting and general art practice that we have all been weaned on.

CORA had always identified the Studio run by the couple Uche Edochie and Nkechi Nwosu-Igbo as game-changers (permit the cliché). And their usual out-of-box production and exhibition concepts over time have always proved this. Even in our private sessions at the CORA, we often acknowledged that The Edge Studio and its promoters represent the spirit of the inventive, adventurist and progressive culture producers that CORA greatly admirers and is willing to be identified with.

Now, it would be clear why Nkechi Nwosu Igbo was unanimously voted into the Board of Governors of the CORA. And why we continue to find her a most resourceful and worthy ally in our vision to make Culture the prime Economic destination of Nigeria by 2018; and make the Arts contribute its destined quota to helping to grow the human capital resources of Nigeria.

2010 was when the very first note of this progressive collaboration manifested so strongly. The exhibition mounted in the small exhibition hall of the Aina Onabolu Building at the National Gallery of Art remains a reference point in exhibition circle. Last year’s festival witnessed another fruitful session; and that is what has spurred us to ask Nkechi and The Edge Studio to do it again and again.

In this harvest season, you will be privileged once gain to share of the beauty of our artistic worldview in ‘DO NOT RESUSCITATE’ describes by the curator, Nwosu-Igbo as “a social gathering that hopes to discuss how recent security threats and continuous economic conditions can be used to reform and be the catalyst we need to take decisions about finally moving our society forward.”

A site-specific conceptual show, taking its life from the political and cultural history of the festival venue, Freedom Park, it reflects on History, Memory, and Identity through the Video art, found objects, Installations, Poetry, Paintings, Performances, and open air discussions featuring Jelili Atiku (of course), Aderemi Adegbite, Tolu Aliki, Iquo Eke, Bob-Nosa Uwagboe, and yes, yes, Nkechi Nwosu-Igbo, who, of course, is the Curator.

Welcome…

Jahman Anikulapo

Prog. Chair, CORA