Six Artists Interrogate Emotions, Identities and Futurism at Young Contemporaries 2022

Young, talented and spirited, the six emerging artists in the Rele Arts Foundation’s annual visual art tradition titled ‘Young Contemporaries 2022’ unleashed a varied collection of works at the National Museum, Onikan that was inspired by their wealth of personal experiences and an intensive boot camp programme. Yinka Olatunbosun reports

At its grand opening on January 9, a flock of young people assembled at the National Museum, Onikan- the home of the 2022 Young Contemporaries to see the outcome of a two-week virtual boot camp held in 2021.

This initiative by Rele Arts Foundation kicked off in 2016, and now has blossomed into a cultural staple for young artists to express their creativity using a diverse range of medium, tools and resources for artistic development.

At the month-long show which wraps up this weekend, each artist brings his or her perspective to shed light on themes of identity, trauma, family ties, time and memory amongst others.

This year, the show becomes more cosmopolitan as it features four Nigerian artists as well as two artists from Ghana and Zimbabwe.

They held their audience spell-bound with every day realities interpreted through the visual language. For Ayobami Ogungbe, his relatable collection titled “&Co” celebrates the popular trend of ‘aso ebi’ which is an identical, ceremonial fabric for families, friends and loved ones.

“It is the culture of wearing clothes cut from the same fabric. You can see it on twins, triplets, couple; you see it at weddings and political rallies; schools and associations. It is a commentary on how we use fabric to identify with an ideology, religion or familiar spaces,’’ Ogungbe revealed.

The young graduate of Mass Communication from the University of Lagos taps from the ingredients of the mundane to document a repository of experiences, bearers of distinctive identities and custodians of culture. With a combination of photography, weaving and collage, he uses “&Co’’ to highlight codes of belonging and social solidarity.

On her part, Jessica Soares draws upon an emotional story in her body of works titled, ‘Chronicles of Esther.’ Both she and her mother live with Alopecia-an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss. Soares juxtaposes the subject matters of trauma, vulnerability while raising questions about social standards of feminine beauty. Her audience would leave the show better informed and less judgmental of ladies on low cuts or wig-wearing women and men.

Just opposite Soares’ mother-daughter exhibits you’d find Kenneth Oghenemaro’s ‘Fast Traveler,’ a series of oil paintings that imagines the possibilities of time travel as a means of rewriting history.

A blend of science, fiction and futurism, the artist also explores his childhood experiences of dealing with asthmatic. The subjects in his paintings are thought-provoking, projecting the future in today’s vision.

As for the Ghanaian artist with specialty in sculpture, Michael Jackson Blebo, his artistic journey traverses geological formations, material memory and architecture in his collection called ‘Spaces of Scent.’

Using charcoal, phyto (natural pigment), earth colours, bentonite clay and steel pipes, he confronts the viewer with shifting perspectives on materiality and the fluidity of organic forms.

Driven by the need to catalyse critical conversations, Neec Nonso excavates memories and experiences with the series ‘What was dead was never dead.’ It is an on-going project that examines the belief in reincarnation and the posthumous existence of the dead.

Borne by still images and augmented reality, the works raises questions about the afterlife with intimate family stories as well as popular myths and taboos. The native of Aguleri, Anambra started his online series called ‘Aguleri stories’ which tells the story of an Igbo community that has gained notoriety for its boundary wars with neighbours. Nonso won the best portfolio at the LagosPhoto Festival in 2019 and was awarded a one-year residency programme at the African Artists’ Foundation, Lagos.

Before she gave the audience a taste of her performance art, the Harare-based artist, Nothando Chiwanga exhibited her photography series titled ‘Muroora Weguta’ which considers the relationship between patriarchal enforcement and the roles of women in African society.

The self-portrait artist deploys her body as a medium of memory and fiction to reveal the complex nature of young womanhood in a dynamic society. With photography, film and performance, Chiwanga domesticates the African discourse on young women with cross-generational appeal.