At Obalende Night Market, ‘Duna Dura’ Explores Cultural Memory

The spell-binding sight of ‘Emi Olooja Ara’ ignited curiosity in passengers-by, traders and other accidental spectators of the Duna Dura Performance Art at Obalende Night Market, Ijeh Village Road, which was curated by Jumoke Sanwo one wet Wednesday evening in Lagos. Yinka Olatunbosun reports

Not even the rain could stop that burning fire in these multi-disciplinary artists who worked collectively on this project to deliver a show-stopping performance art on June 9 in Obalende, a major town in Lagos. Jelili Atiku, the globe-trotting performance artist was the centre of the show which was first understood by passers-by as night masquerade. Sounds of honking from impatient drivers mixed with the voices of a few angry street urchins who attempted to interrupt the creative process. Atiku, who was draped in a heavy costume with multiple metals performed as the Emi, Olooja Ara that is ‘soul, the marketer of the body.’

Simply put, the two-hour performance situated the human soul as a negotiator within the acts of remembrance and forgetting. There’s no gainsaying that the use of the market area was quite symbolic given its cultural roots in negotiation. Unlike the urban culture of buying at fixed prices, the African traditional market has sustained negotiation over generations.

Thus, ‘Dúna Dúrà’ interrogates spatial and embodied memory through a site-specific cultural co-production, tapping from Atiku’s practice of investigating psychosocial phenomenology through performance. Curated by the storyteller and Cultural Producer, Jumoke Sanwo, Duna Dura- a site-specific portal of re-imagination-was one of six regional projects, under Goethe Institutes, continental project Archive of Forgetfulness and engages the interdependencies, between spatial and embodied cultural memory.

The entourage that followed the performance walked through Obalende Night Market on Ijeh Street, the Ikoyi cemetery to the Obalende bus terminus while it was streamed to a virtual audience via Youtube and Instagram Live. The performance was the evening’s finale that explored the interstitial nature of memory, drawing from acts of negotiation, within the market space, and the traditional role of the night market, as a portal between the corporeal and incorporeal world.

It all started with Aremo Gemini’s spoken word performance titled ‘Messages from Ejigbede’- an ancestral traveller in between earth, heaven and the afterlife of potsherd.’Obasola Bamigbola also led a series of virtual and on-site interviews that featured Prof. Moyo Okediji in ‘We Don’t Die-The Archive is Embodied,’ Stephen Ajadi in ‘The Architecture of the Night market,’ Dr. Taibat Lawanson in ‘Urban informality -The night market,’ Adeboye Martins in ‘The Place Where the King Chased Us To,’ Oludamola Adebowale in ‘The Night Market and History,’ Dr. Adun Okupe in ‘Ayé Lojà,Ojà L’aye’, Sola Akintunde in ‘Architecture of the Night Market II,’ Mrs. Fatimoh Balogun in ‘Ayé Lojà,Ojà L’ayé,’ Wale Egbeyemi (Baba Oja) in ‘Ayé Lojà,Ojà L’ayé,’ Adenike Egbeyemi amongst others.

In her remarks, the curator, Jumoke Sanwo beamed light on the project and its cultural implication.

“Within the context of a Re-Imagination, we reflected on embodied archives, as spaces of re-experiencing, and producing absences, through acts, objects, places and spaces; where place is associated with the world of the past, and space with the world of the present and future. Negotiators within acts of re-imagination, became a resource of alternate thinking, interlocutor of ‘unstructured’ spaces, and knowledge; serving as portals into rethinking of archives of the future; one which reflects the societies’ agreed customs, expressions, memory, and identity, within which the future is always present in the now,’’ she said.

The outcome of this event, a short film ‘Dúna Dúrà’ directed by Jumoke Sanwo, will contribute to the discourse of embodying the archives. The Archive of Forgetfulness is a collaborative and collective project, which has three parts: The first is an eight-part podcast series, ‘Conversations with Neighbours’ curated by Huda Tayob and Bongani Kona.

The second part is the online exhibition in response to an open call. The selection committee for this open call consisted of Ali Al Adawy (Egypt) / Bongani Kona (Zimbabwe/South Africa) / Eric Ngangare (Rwanda) / Huda Tayob (South Africa) /Jumoke Sanwo (Nigeria) / Omnia Shawkat (Sudan) / Princess Mhlongo (South Africa) / Zakiyyah Haffejee (South Africa)/ Zoubida Mseffer (Morocco).

The third part, which will unfold over the course of 2021, includes six additional projects developed by the regional curators Ali Al Adawy (Egypt) / Bongani Kona (Zimbabwe/South Africa) / Eric Ngangare (Rwanda) / Huda Tayob (South Africa) /Jumoke Sanwo (Nigeria) / Omnia Shawkat (Sudan) / Princess Mhlongo (South Africa) / Zakiyyah Haffejee (South Africa)/ Zoubida Mseffer (Morocco)

The ‘Archive of Forgetfulness’ holds together acts of remembering: collecting and gathering stories often untold. The contributions renew lines of connections, resurface forgotten conversations, and establish the beginnings of future collaborations. This project is a space for interrogating the archival gesture, from the bodily and spoken, to the written and performed.