A-ARTs: Childhood memory as metaphor in Atabeh’s freedom theme

'When Children Still Run' (photography) by Samuel Avurakoghene Atabeh

By Ola Alowoloke

AN old, rusty bungalow, located along unpaved road with children in playing mood, sharing the same space with a lone goat, all add up to childhood innocence and memory.

Captured by the roving lens of photographer, Samuel Avurakoghene Atabeh, the scene in the work, Where Children Still Run, reflects childhood of the pasts, across diverse neighbourhood. The scene could have been elsewhere, in an affluent choice environment, and the innocence of the mood of the children would still be relevant to the theme of the subject.

In black and white, as a deliberate choice of the photographer, the picture celebrates innocence of children and their playtime without restrictions. Despite what appears like limitations in the environment as captured by Atabeh, the mood of the children seems not conscious of such restrictions. With its depiction of the aging neighbourhood, Where Children Still Run serves as a meditation in comparative culture of the present day that enslaved the young ones in either screens of TV or other electronic gadgets.

Every street experience has its value on childhood, particularly the playtime period, so Atabeh’s work attempts to argue. In Where Children Still Run, the combined physical environment and human interactions, among the playmates, are much cherished experience that plays huge factors in memories. What looks like deprivation as regards the environment of the children in Atabeh’s work becomes advantage; more cherished than expensive toys and designer’s playground that comes with limitations.

More symbolic to the playtime and playground of the Where Children Still Run is the natural space, for example, the presence of a real goat. In contrast to expensive sculptured goat in plastic that would be placed in an affluent and choice estate environment, the children here have the feel of the natural animal, sharing their playtime.

The pace of the children also captures what looks their return from a house nearby, confirming how neighbours are aligned together in communal relationship. In contemporary urbanisation that generates challenges such as security and social menace issues, Atabeh’s work celebrates the old communal behavioural patterns where everyone knows the other persons’ children and cares for the collective safety of all.

Significantly are the building and the presence of the goat as the two becomes witness to generations of children who grow through the same playtime in the shared community. The old architectural designs of the house with its rustic metal roofing sheets though discloses generational shifts of children, but the shared space for playtime remains unchanged. For the goat, resting undisturbed, and witnessing evolving young generation of children, the shared freedom in the community, without restriction becomes something to celebrate collectively.

In the contemporary and digital age when photography seems to be more widely practised by whoever has the resources to own a camera, every professional needs to prove their uniqueness. In Where Children Still Run, Atabeh attempts to rely more on the uniqueness of the theme, perhaps with less focus on the aesthetics. With little room for conceptuality, Atabeh struggles to protect the natural environment of the community without losing it to digital influence.

For viewers in search of conceptual photography adventure, Atabeh’s Where Children Run is not the right attraction. As the piece appears too ordinary to engage digital concept enthusiasts, perhaps the black and white texture as well as the rustic environment invoke memory and identity.

Between 2018 and currently, Atabeh’s work experience suggests a photographer whose art probably was not known to the public until 2018 when he showed in Emergence, at Thought Pyramid Art Centre, Abuja, Nigeria. From that early experience till date, he has shown in over 10 exhibitions.

Line, light through digital brushings-of Oseh