N is for Nigeria

Another dinner with the dining group, this time at a Majestic, a Nigerian restaurant in Brixton.

Overall eating at this restaurant was quite a somewhat chaotic experience. 

None of us had any idea what Nigerian food was like so we didn't really know what we were ordering.   The waiter made sure that he took our names when he wrote down our orders so that he could just call the name out 'Starbuck's style' when he brought the food.

We were quite a large group and our orders ended up being taken in two turns, so that our food arrived at quite different times.  Fortunately, my meal was one of the first to arrive.  The name system hadn't made it out into the restaurant with the food so it was a bit of a free-for-all trying to figure out whose food was being brought out.

 We had this mysterious palm wine, which was actually non-alcoholic.

A Nollywood film kept us entertained in the two hour wait between arriving in the restaurant and the food arriving.

My meal. The sauce was super spicy!  I forgot to write down what it was though!

Our meal was accompanied by live music which was quite loud but entertaining.

Africa Village

Lots of different countries have set up cultural houses around London, where fans can watch their athletes perform and curious visitors like me can find out about the country.

The organisors of Africa Village have gone one better and organised a cultural spot for the entire continent. Not every country is represented but a good number are including quite a few who are only represented in my world tour through the British Museum. I had a chat with a couple of ladies from the Nigerian stall and the Conogolese stall about music from their countries.

And Shazam finally came to my aid and identified 3 of the songs playing in the Africa Village - two by the Gabonese singer Oliver Ngoma and a song by Sengalese artist Ismael Lo.

 And how can you listen to a song like this and not end up with a big smile on your face? (well it has that effect on me anyway)

 Togolese cloth print

 Congolese cloth prints

 Art by Moroccan artist Houria Niati

 Gabonese crest

 As the Spirits Roam by Nigerian artist Cinwe Chukwuogo-Roy 2005

 Landscape Redux 1 When Sunshine gets blue by Nigerian artist Damilola Oshilaja

 Nne-nne Aguna Asaa by Cinwe Chukwuogo-Roy, 2005

 Equatorial Guinean cloth prints

Art by Cameroonian artist Pouka (Mbeng Pouka)

Masters of Transvangarde

Transvangarde is a type of post avant garde art.  And your guess is as good as mine as to what that actually means.

I wonder if there is a link between the October Gallery and the British Museum as I have seen three artists (El Anatsui, Owusu-Ankomah and Rachid Koraichi) exhibiting in both places.

In this exhibition there was work by the following artists:

El Anatsui, Ghana
Ninenna Okore, Nigeria
Owusu-Ankomah, Ghana
Willian S Burroughs, USA
Brion Gysin, England
Gerald Wilde, England
Kenji Yoshida, Japan
Rachid Koraichi, Algeria
Golnaz Fathi, Iran
Govinda Singh, Nepal
Lala Shawa, Palestine
Julien Sinzogan, Benin
Aubrey Willians, Guyana

SOAS Special Collections

There was no photography allowed in the SOAS Special Collections, which is a bit of a shame.  They had a lot of different things from art to artifacts.  African art seems to pop up in unexpected places!


African art:

Matooke (Green Banana) by J Muyango, a student from Makerere University,  Uganda, was painted for an exam in the early 1960s.  This was my favourite thing in the gallery.

Colourful Slum by Ehigbor Iyoghioje from Nigeria painted in 2000.

Mother and Child by Margaret Towel from the 1940s, Uganda.

Akaba People's Prodigal Son (at least I think that's what it was called when I try to read my notes) by Kyalo son of Ngila from Kenya.

There was also a Nepalese Buddhist manuscript made from gouache ink and paper of Karandavyuha (Manifestation of Appearances according to the Gallery) and an Armenian manuscript.

UNITY by One Room Shack

Unity is an art installation by Nigerian artists Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi and Emeka Ogboh in Watermans theatre - art centre in Gunnersbury. 

The installation is a maze made out of clear plastic spelling and coloured light spelling out the word UNITY.  It represents the Olympic spirit.

You can find more information about One Room Shack on their website 1roomshack.com

Tiwani Contemporary

Tiwani Contemporary is a new gallery that has recently opened near to Oxford Circus.  They currently have an exhibition called Synchronicity by a collective of artists called On the Roof.

More information as soon as I can find the information sheet I got from the gallery.

Film Africa 2011

Film Africa 2011 is a 10 day film festival featuring both long and short films from film makers throughout Africa.

I went to see 4 short films at Rich Mix in Shoreditch:
- Lobi, an experimental film from DRC
- Square Stories, a video installation about the main public square in Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia.
- Phyllis and The Deliverance of Comfort, two films exploring themes and images used in Nollywood films.

Afterwards there was a QA session with Zina Saro-Wiwa the film maker of Phyllis and The Deliverance of Comfort.  It was really interesting to hear her explain the issues she was exploring through her films.

She said that Nollywood films were a mix of conservatism (single women almost always have a hard time and get punished) and at the same time quite 'out there' film making (I forget exactly what word she used). For example she said she's seen Nollywood films which would switch genres halfway through. It has made me want to see a Nollywood film now, having never watched one before. 

More information and the programme can be found here: www.filmafrica.org.uk

Hippo

Ohoto (hippo) masquerade by artist Sokari Douglas Camp from Nigeria.

Nigerian art in the Horniman

There are a few contemporary artworks hanging on the walls of the African gallery at the Horniman Museum.

Rufus Ogundele - Boats on Lagoon

 Rufus Ogundele - Ant Hills

Yoruba: A Celebration of African Art

Osi Audu - I Have a Landscape in My Head

Contested Terrains

A series of photographs entitled Emissaries of an Iconic Religion by Adolphus Opara from Nigeria showed potraits of Yorùbán Diviners. The Yorùbá religion is from South Western Nigeria.

More about Yorùbá Religion here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_religion