By Tajudeen Sowole
The
cultural components of Lagos, at its formative stages of pre-Portuguese
influence, and towards an evolving centre of economic activities in West Africa
are the focus of a new body of work by printmaker, Akintunde Disu.
Currently showing at Didi Museum, Victoria Island,
Lagos as art exhibition titled. Layer Cake, the works bring a visual
narrative into the making of Lagos, by implanting icons of cultural relevance
in historic context. Disu's Layer Cake highlights how the peoples of
Benin, now in modern day Edo State; Nupe or Tapa, under Niger State; and Islam through
some Malian cultural influence fused into the Yoruba values to make up the
greater Lagos that the Portuguese and British met on the ground before colonial
era.
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| Lagos Series 3 Idejos by Akintunde Disu |
With academic background in the science,
Disu, over the decades, has acquired informal art knowledge as a passion. His
work melts a Bruce Onobrakpeya technique with Andy Warhol pop art style to
exhale what he described as "my own way of telling history." On large
size canvases, icons such as Eyo
masquerade, a festival identity of the city and Idejo people, a symbol of the Lagos land owners; ancient Bini queen
mother mask, Iyoba; and symbol of the
aristocrats, but nomadic-like Dankolo
people from Mali are printed with fluorescent colours to explain Disu's
thematic choice of a Lagos history that hardly finds its way into pictorial
contents. Like most coastal cities around he world, Lagos has its complex
history, despite an undisputable Yoruba identity. "I am focusing on the
complexity of Lagos history," the artist explained to a guest inside his
studio, ahead of the opening of the exhibition. Some of the complexities,
viewed from the modern and contemporary contexts of a nation state now known as
Nigeria are not exactly unknown. For example, Disu, a Lagos native stressed
that "the crown of the Lagos monarchy has its roots in the ancient
Bini." Historians, perhaps, existing remnants support the artist's
argument.
Also the artist flaunts his Lagos origin with
slogans in some of the works he tags . One of such says ti oju o ba ti ehin Igbeti, oju ko ni ti Eko ile (with the
triumphant of Igbeti, Lagos is
secured.)
In Disu's visual narrative of Lagos comes the
confirmation that Lagos – pre-colonial era - had always been a convergence of
commercial and cultural activities from peoples across West Africa. Apart from
Disu's Layer Cake, a book, Sandbank City: Lagos at 150 written by Prof John
Godwin (OFR OBE) and Gillian Hopwood (MFR), British expatriates of over
60 years in Nigeria, also suggests that Eko as a commercial nerve centre in
West Africa predates colonial era and Nigeria's nation state.
From Disu's Lagos series comes Iyoba, a dissolving and fading of
multi-colour images that represent what he noted as the "Benin funeral mask
of Queen Idia with the British Union
Jack ". The icon, Idia mask,
otherwise known as Iyoba (Queen
Mother) reminds one of a controversial original mask of the same icon, dated
16th century in provenance, and currently
incarcerated inside the British Museum, in the U.K.
For the mask that is now famous from the
ongoing issue of restitution of cultural objects, Disu’s Layer Cake traces its history to the well-known punitive expedition
of 1897 and the failed bid by Nigerian nation state to recover the mask for Second World Festival of Black Arts and
Culture (FESTAC ’77). But what the artist described as "moat"
similarity links the mask and history. The FESTAC
event, he noted, was "held at the National Art Theatre in Lagos, a
building paradoxically set inside a moat" and "the great moat which
surrounds it."
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| HRM, Oba Idowu Oniru of Lagos (right) with HRH Erelu Abiola Dosunmu at the opening of the exhibition |
In another work, Lagos Series 4, Disu brings a period of “Dankolo Golden Caravans,”
noting how the people brought knowledge of ancient kingdoms to the coastal
areas. He traces River Dankolo springs in Guinea, at the foot hills of the Futa
Jallon highlands as "turning its back on the Atlantic, flowing north to
form the mighty river Niger, sees the Sahara, and meets the ocean in the grand
Niger Delta."
The work further depicts how the Dankolos
"travelled south from the ivory towers of Timbuktu in search of the ocean,
bringing with them wealth of enlightenment trade, Islam and the spirit of adventure."
While the Islamic heritage of Lagos natives predates British colonialism and
Christian missionaries in several centuries – roughly three to four hundred
years - its origin into the coastal city, sources have argued was not from the
Sahara, but through the sea. In fact, some sources have argued that Islam in
Lagos predates its arrival in the Northern part of Nigeria. But Disu’s argument
in favour of the Dankolos’ movement to the coastal areas is not specifically
tracing Islam in Lagos to the Dankolos.
Perhaps representing the Lagos cultural and
economics dynamics more is Lagos Series 3
Idejo as Disu described the Idejos
as the Dukes of the Lagoon: the original landowners. The composite of the
works, he explained, summarises Lagos. "The red and green of the
Portuguese who gave the city its modern name is brought to play against a back
ground of the petrol blue of the Lagoon.”
Disu’s bio: “At 16 I
was on the National Gallery shortlist for the BP portrait award. I studied Chemistry
at the University of Manchester, U.K, and joined Eagle Paints Nigeria Ltd where
I rose to become General Manager.
“I am a sailor, marathon runner, snowboarder. I have exhibited twice at
Lagos Art Expo 2009 and 2012.”
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