9-8-7-6 ... Home!

There we go, only another month left in Nigeria and I have to confess that the year went much more quickly than anticipated. But I also have to confess: I can't wait to leave ... for now.

No, its not Nigeria that's the issue, its that I really really need a break. If I'm honest with you and myself: I'm not really researching anymore, I'm just dragging along, picking up what's to be found along the way - granted, given that I'm currently hanging around ABU, Zaria there are some nuggets just waiting for me to be picked up - and would honestly prefer to leave now now, take a break writing and digesting and then come back again in a few months ... Which by the way, I'd still like to do somehow, if there's any way of harmonising this with my home university and ... well, getting some cash or some income over here. But that's ... Let's wait and allow things to fall in place.

For now, I'm longing for golden October, the fresh air, German bread, 24/7 power supply and running hot water ... and some quality time with family and friends, hence: a break!

To, the countdown has been started, the countdown to Germany first, then London (where I need to sort out all the staff I left with my ex-flat mates) Anyway, all of you out there in Berlin and London - can't wait to see you, discuss all that happened last year in my and, most of all, in your life over a cup of coffee, hot chocolate or wine (my own experiences I already know about!) ...

All of you in Naija - well, its still too early to say good bye ... n anyway I'm planning to come back! Because of d people, lovely people, I met n don't want to miss again!

Finally I got the full Nigeria experience ...

... and unfortunately armed robbery is part of it.

Two nights ago chaps armed with cutlasses and rifles entered by hotel, (the advantages of bein short-sighted: I thought it was 'just' sticks until somebody told me otherwise afterwards! I'd probably freaked had I known the truth earlier!), broke into all the rooms and badly beat up some of the guests - I think I'm the only one they didn't physically touch.

So, in this sense I'm alright, so I'm still walking on thin ice, nerve-wise, despite hiding out at some Lebanese friends' place for the last two days. Its just been a bit too much for one week after my translator got beaten up for (as a Muslim) allowing me (a Christian) to snap pictures of the posters of local sufi sheikhs. - The problem didn't originate with the owners of the respective houses but some by-standers who followed him after we parted and beat him alledging I would commit sacrileg with these images once I'm back home - which is of course not the case.

So, I'm currently trying to take it slow for a few days ... and will let this particular strand of my research rest for the moment being. Too scared and what's the point without the camera anyway? I don't think there is a connection between the two incidents, as a colleague at the uni here suggested but better safe than sorry ... again.

Yeah, did I mention that, they took the camera and only after a long argument (almost got into a fight between each other in my room) drop (or rather threw in full flight) the laptop back into the room - too easily traceable by the police! I haven't got it working again since ... so that's the end of pics for you and my research until I work something out ... but my original funding doesn't stretch for a new quality camera and ... well, I don't expect any handouts from Kano Local Government who owns the place where I stayed, not really.

But apropro: a lot of other people have been extremely helpful with little hand-outs of money until I got my dad's new transfer, offer of accomodation and ... yeah, their ear to listen. Yesterday a Lebanese who hardly knows me picked me up crying at the roadside - the ice I walk on is thin enough for an argument with an achaba driver to break through it! - took me to his shop, made coffee for me, ordered breakfast, distracted and calmed me down and in the end send his driver to where I originally had intended to go (which was not where the achaba driver dropped me, not at all, which's what the argument was about) ... all very amazing, isn't it?

So, I'm kind of looking forward to leaving Kano, though not to getting back into a hotel or other rather public lodging. But I will have to see, a research colleague here in Kano suggested he might be able to organise me on-campus accomodation in Zaria.

So, yeah, still slightly shaking but ... yeah, lot's of wishes to everybody as I will be silent for a while I think, need to find a cheap and good-enough cafe in Zaria first ...

I have just come back from a day that started at Kurmi Market talking to sellers of religious posters. Personally I'm particularly interested in the older ones that have reportedly been imported from Cairo some fifty years ago as well as their locally produced reprints. They show portraits of sufi sheikhs, scenes from the old testament as well as from Muslim history.

I wonder to which extent they have informed a contemporary local discourse on visuals arts in which portraits of sheikhs (and to some extend politicians) can be found all over the town on posters, murals and stickers. But in order to make any such argument I need to know more about the history of these posters, the context in which they were produced, their original audience/consumers, the origin of their iconography etc.

In addition to my own interest I have also met a really nice and assisting local researcher, Nura Ibrahim from the Department of Mass Communication at Bayero University, who is interested in the history of these posters for his MA own research into contemporary posters and their semiotics.

Unfortunately we have not been able to learn to much about the history of these posters from the traders. They inherited their business from their fathers and all they know is what they've been told and that the posters were already available here in Kano before they took over.

Hence, if anybody out there might be able to advice us as to where to look for information on these posters or whom to talk to (probably via email/internet for the moment being) we'd be really grateful!!!

Tracking down the white smiths

Last Saturday I took Sara a friend of my Kenyan friend and VSO volunteer Eunice at Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education to Kurmi Market, the oldest of all the markets in town – established by the 15th century ruler Muhammed Rumfa – and during the 19th century certainly one of the most important markets in the Western Sudan thanks to the trans-Saharan Trade. Anyway, we were taken around by another friend of mine, Nura Alee. Nura is a cap designer and has himself two shops at the market; hence he knows his way around and a lot of people.
While we were hunting for silver bangles in the Tuareg Style we came across a beautiful vase, supposedly produced in Cairo.

I’m not an expert of Egyptian arts and, hence, cannot really verify this information but given Kano’s close trade links with the Maghreb and the fact that an abundance of North African produce specifically at Kurmi market has already been remarked upon by 19th century European travellers the vase might actually be from Cairo. However, moving on in our hunt for jewellery we came about another set of vases, some of them in a style kind of reminiscent of the ‘Cairo vase.’ However, those, the trader assured us, were produced locally. Unfortunately though, local white smiths stopped producing these kinds of work a long time ago, roughly during the time his grandfather ran the shop. So, he estimated, the vase might be about a hundred or two hundred years old.
Now I have read in an article by M.U. Adamu that during the 19th century Arab migrants set up factories producing a particular kind of large tongued slipper (lantami) for export across the Western Sudan and Tripoli. Soon afterwards local leather craftsmen started producing similar wares and, in fact, improved on the designs. (In: Kano Studies 1968, Vol. 1,4, p. 44) Similarly, local white smiths could have started copying from imported Arab metal products, such as vases, couldn’t they? On the other hand, this was a trader’s information and, after all, isn’t a traders main objective to sell, even if this means he might have to bend the truth a bit?
Well, in the end I decided to buy one of the small one of the vases, mainly because it showed residue of colouring in the engraved designs. And with the vase and accompanied by a good local friend I went on the search for who might have produced it or similar pieces.
In fact, only a close distance from the market we were directed towards a group of old men who we were told used to produce pieces like mine. In fact, they had but stopped about forty years ago. And my own vase, they suggested, was clearly of Arab produce – so it seems information given by traders really needs to be taken with a pinch of salt!
Anyway, I’m not really angry. After all I really like my little vase – and being able to show it around really helped us in finding the old white smiths. However, none of them is actually engaged in the production of similar pieces any more. It appears that the majority of their customers were not local people but expatriates, or so they told me. So when these stopped patronising them about 40 years ago and the raw material, brass, significantly increased in price local white smiths stopped producing them. Instead they now engrave prefabricated aluminium spoons and kettles. This, however, means that a new generation of local white smiths don’t learn the techniques of producing pieces like my vase from the scratch. The men I spoke to claim to still be able to do a similar product for me or even a completely different design – provided I supply the raw material. (I’d love to commission one but for the money …) However, they are in their late 60s and early 70s and it has to be feared that this knowledge will die out with them. (Of course, there are centres of white smiting, especially brass casting, in other parts of the country or wider region where an interested youth could learn the trade. But how are they ever to consider this if they don’t know about it in the first place because nobody does it locally?) At the same time I have seen pieces similar to my little vase or intricately decorated brass bowls in the houses of some of the more well of citizens of Kano – only that they go them from Dubai.

D Lorry Painters in Sabon Kwakwaci

During the last two or three weeks I finally got around to approaching lorry painters – don’t get me wrong I have tried before. Then my point of departure was the address on the back of a lorry I saw and photographed right during my second day in town. However, it took forever to figure out where exactly the place mentioned there was. My local friends, I have to say, were not of great help either. ‘Kwakinachi, D/Tofa, Kano’ it read.

First time around, nobody had heard of the place at all. Then Ibrahim came up with the suggestion that the place might be misspelled and actually referring to Kwakwaci. Alright, so where then is Kwakwaci? Sabon Gari I was told, not far away from where I lodge, I was told. By more then one person. So, I got onto a bike and went there. And, I really found one guy who claimed to paint lorries. But then, for some reason I couldn’t help it but suspect he didn’t really know what I was talking about – paintings on lorries? Well, he’s doing signs, so this must be what I’m talking about. Something along those lines. However, even my helpful achaba driver was irritated by the guy’s lack of comprehension of my (admittedly basic) Hausa. (He understood me alright.) So, I chose to get a translator.

Getting Ibrahim to actually turn out somebody took another week or two. (see Salisu below to the right, on the left is Garba who assisted us a lot, himself a lorry painter) During which I developed major doubts about the guy I met at the Kwakwaci in Sabon Gari. I kept on asking people what D/Tofa could actually mean. Nobody came up with anything. Until, by chance, I myself came about a mention of Dawakin Tofa Local Government in some article. And there it clicked. The moment I mentioned this to Ibrahim he remembered that there are actually three Kwakwaci in Kano and one of them Sabon or New Kwakwaci in Dawakin Tofa local government, 30 mins – 1 hrs journey on a minibus (depending on traffic and how often they stop for passengers to get on and of).

Turns out this was the right track, finally after almost 6 weeks. In fact, as we discovered this week after three unsuccessful journeys there to meet whom we thought to be the third of two masters residing there we found out that there are about 20 or so workshops at the place. In addition the guys down there pointed us towards three other workshops, two of them on the town’s ring road, one at yet another Kwakwaci further in town. And, as most of the painters were actually were willing to answer a few questions I think I got quite a bit of information to go through and summarise during the weekend. And lots of pictures, some of which I’ll upload.
(Impression of Sabon Kwakwaci)
The only disappointment were two painters who didn’t talk to me. One of them had us come three times to see him and me wasting a whole eve to translate my questions into Hausa and neatly write them down for him. All this just to tell us the third time around (after we spent over an hour waiting for him to turn up for our appointment) that he couldn’t talk to me. – Supposedly, because I didn’t have a permanent office in Kano! A researcher at BUK suggested that might be a lie to cover up something else. It might well be that somebody told him I was a spy or reminded him not to trust a white person or something like that. It’s only too sad, in fact, very annoying: we were referred to him as one of the oldest painters at the location and one of the trainees of the guy who originally introduced the craft in Kano. The other one of the two, I don’t really know what happened. Twice he had just left when we arrived to see him (in one case to still find the open paint tins in front of an unfinished work) and was not to be expected back any time soon. Now it appears he resettled with his workshop in Jos, a few hours drive southeast. Well, as the town’s home to one of the oldest and most famous workshops in the northern region I will have to go there anyway and then we’ll see whether he ‘just’ miraculously resettled in Kano or what!

(a Christian motif, on a lorry probably coming from the south ... even with reference to the particular psalm in the bible, unfortunately they don't state the workshop where it was done ...)

A little flea called St. Aying

I have to confess to an idea, a little flea somebody put into my ear already quite a while ago and that's now established a family that's slowly working its way right through my brain. The flea's called: St. Aying. - Sure, the originator of this little insect is currently not really relevant in any plans I'm making but this little monster has nevertheless developed a live of its own. Or rather, some environmental factors have encouraged the flea to start his little family that is now effecting my plans for next year:

For a number of reasons, some due to my own originally wrong approach, some to certain deplorable character traits of mine, others to time wasted on, lets call it: administrative issues (I already lost over two months earlier this year, another two weeks this month and will probably have to spend some more time on it later next month), I'm not really satisfied with the progress I have made with my research, the reason for which I originally came. And now it looks like there might be an opportunity to get a job here and, hence, extend my stay for another year or so while accomodation is provided and I earn a living wage.

I haven't yet really made up my mind and would be very grateful for any comments, hints and feedback ... I'm not yet hundred percent sure about the implications regarding my grant and the regulations of the school. After all, I was hoping to use this time to finish and write up my PhD while still in the field, while being able to rather easily contact my informants to clarify any questions I might be having. Hence, I will have to undertake a little bit of research before I take any final decision but ... well, I got a tentatively positive feedback from my supervisor just today and feel quite encouraged by that. So, yeah, really interested in further feedback and opinions ... you can leave comments on this side and you have my email, I assume, so pls. help me make up my mind and take the right decision!!!

Guys, its finally getting hot here, hot by Nigerian terms this is, I mean, don’t try to tell me anything below 30 is hot – its not, this here is hot. I mean, even stubborn me is now seriously thinking about giving up on her jeans (though they’re so practical getting on and off the achabas) and considering to leave the fan on overnight – just in case NEPA discovers it has a heart and some pity with a suffering baturiya and sends light. I guess, I hope, the heat means that finally, finally the rains are also reaching Kano. After the first couple of thunderstorms in Maiduguri I was actually deeply disappointed to come and find that Kano, which supposedly has the milder climate, actually has hardly seen any rain yet. Yesterday it rained … somewhere, all we got were some excited winds, some lightning and the occasional thunder. That’s like holding a piece of chocolate right under the nose of a chocoholic on diet!!!

Apart from the heat and a tiny little accident with an achaba (too much traffic, the driver too impatient and my foot too fat to fit through the needle-hole he wanted to get through … or rather, one toe to many and now the little one’s a bit … well, I really don’t want to let the art historian hang out by analysing the different shades of blue, red, green and yellow!) I’m actually still enjoying Kano. In fact, looks like Samir (of the barber shop right around the corner of the camp) is tomorrow going to show me where to go swimming in Kano. If I’m not already brain-dead by then, that is. I’m meeting with Ibrahim in the early eve, will go for some nice food with later, 11pm I’m invited for clubbing (yeah, I’m curious as well) and tomorrow at 8:30 (latest) I’m meeting Eunice and her friend for church. So, I might as well fall asleep at the pool … let’s just hope their life guards are attentive enough to safe me in time.

Health and Safety a la Nigeria

I don’t know whether the term jincheng means anything to any of you, but if it does you know that they – even for motorcycles – are not the … how to put it: I’d say with a bit of squeezing and a stable luggage thingy there is just about enough space for the driver and two adult passengers – and these two are better in good terms because that is the closest you’ll get to anybody here in public, in fact even at home somebody sooner or later would ask you to get a room if you really want that much body contact.
But this being Nigeria – and the health and safety standards my WEA tutors hammered into me during last year’s teaching course simply don’t apply here – some parents actually manage to pick up five primary school children with a bike like this. Just so you get it right: That’s two children in front, the adult driver, three kids clinging to each other (the last one to the luggage thingy as well) behind him, and a couple of schoolbags hanging down at the side. And now don’t be fooled into thinking that I’ve seen this on a quite neighbourhood street where traffic goes slow (and even there would be bumps that make me to hold on tightly to the luggage thingy in order not to fall off the bike). No, BUK road does by no means qualify as such, at this particular time of the day its closer to an express way in character. In fact, daddy (?) was apparently in such a hurry that he still had to overtake my already speeding achaba driver!
Don’t get me wrong I’ve seen people transporting five or so mattresses (on end on the passenger’s head who’s holding them and the driver balancing the other end), goats (actually, I’ve seen some poor goats tied onto the roof of a VW-bus on the highway between Maiduguri and Kano) and whole pieces of furniture (an office desk) on those bikes; bus conductors are routinely hanging outside the door if the bus is full (or just the men’s section if they don’t put men and women together) … you get the point, but hey, come on, hold on for a sec and think that this is not just about your own adult life but also that of those kids!!! Or do you really have so many that one falling off the bike doesn’t really matter?!? – Sorry for getting cynical.
(No photos unfortunately of either as each time I was either myself on a bike or in a care too squeezed in to pull out my camera. So you’ll just have to believe me.)

Running up and down FAA Departments

I’ve been running up and down between the Fine and Applied Arts Departments at the Federal College of Education and Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education, Kumbotso, here in Kano distributing questionnaires for students and members of staff, finishing off the Hausa translation of the student questionnaire – yes, students at Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education, tomorrow’s (art) teachers don’t know enough English (at least theoretically the language of instruction in schools after the first years) for the teaching to be conducted in English, let alone for me to administer English questionnaires -, and attending (or trying to) teaching sessions. If I find time in-between that I’m making rather extensive use of the library of the History and Culture Bureau that contains some BA, MA and PhD theses on Kano, its history and local crafts – currently finally reading Prof. Salihu Suleiman’s thesis on the role and relevance of art in education in Nigeria (Ohio State University, 1974, unpublished, I think). Prof. Suleiman is the one who put together the original curriculum of the Creative Arts Department in Maiduguri and I’m hoping that his thesis is going to give me some insight into his intentions and ideas behind it. (And, as I’m running out of time I might not be able to stop over for a longer period of time in Bauchi where, if I’m not mistaken, he is currently based, so his thesis might be the closest I get to him.) Well, and Thursday’s holiday (Democracy Day) I used to hunt down the local lorry drivers, or rather I tried to. I thought I knew where they were (Unguwa Uku Motorpark) but turned out I was wrong. So the very helpful officials of the National Union of Road Transport Workers put me onto an achaba into the town, more exactly Kofar Mata. There, just next to the local Gidan Wanka da Bahaya (well, how do I translate this best? I have never used one but think it’s something of a public bath and toilet – honestly, here Kano is so much ahead of Maidguri where I’ve never seen any public conveniences at all. Instead … you don’t want me to spell that out here.) … anyway, close to the Gidan Wanka there is supposedly a workshop of lorry painters. Problem is only that there are at least three of those Gidan Wanka close to the gate and two of them were at a road that was closed off because of Democracy Day. My achaba driver tried to argue with the guards on my behalf – he might have felt that they should have made an exception for the baturiya on research – but they insisted to treat me like everybody else and, yes, I think they did the right thing there, although it obviously delayed me. Anyway, so I will have to go back there one of the next days and ask around for somebody to point me towards the right direction … whenever I’ll find time between FCE, SRCoE, Kano State Polytechnic (they have an art department and resume next week), the library and other appointments.

Still alive and finally moving on to Kano!!!

Alright, its almost exactly two months since my last entry. Sorry for that but, to my defence, there has hardly been anything worth reporting going on. I spent my time dealing with administrative issues – I mean, anybody seen and/or remembers the Asterix and Cleopatra film? There is this sequence when Asterix and Obelix are requested to just get a simple document from some Roman bureaucrats and kept on being send from one to the other and nobody actually feels responsible … That gets kind of close to the experience of the last few weeks, just without the magic drink!

Since yesterday I’m free (for the moment) and will travel to Kano to continue my research there. Finally. I have been waiting for this ever since I came back from Abuja/Lagos and have had people there asking were I was several times. So, now I’m finally actually going and really looking forward to a bit of a change and some progress with my work.

Though, its not completely true that nothing news-worthy happened the last few weeks. After all I just acquired a new senior brother!!! Abdul Azeez, as he is called, is working at the Postgraduate School at Unimaid and we’ve been coming across each other a lot during the last few weeks (usually he making me wait for him for hours!) and we’ve finally decided that this had to be formalised somehow – hence, now he’s officially the senior brother I never had. And I love the way people look at us when we tell them so: Same mother, same father!!! No, really, he’s coming after daddy and I’m more looking like mummy! Love it. Now I just need to work out how to tell my parents!!! (-:




Oh, and I experimented with local baking techniques and it actually works: you can do a reasonable bread in a pot on firewood if the pots half-filled with sand and the bread rest on that very same sand. – Tomorrow we’ll try whether it also works for pizza, though, I couldn’t find cheese when I was running up and down the shops today. Supposedly there is some kind of tinned cheddar available from some shops at Gidan Madara but … couldn’t find it! Just tinned cream fresh. Which is not exactly the same. But we’ll see how it works out.

P.S. Just as a side-note: My usual internet cafe has currently not working generator so is not available and somehow I seem to be unable to open facebook from the one I'm using currently. So to all facebook friends, sorry, bear with me until I'm finally in Kano!!!

And, again I have been asked to come up with, this time an article, on rather short notice. Ususally that wouldn't be an issue at all and in fact, as I'm back in Maiduguri mainly to sort out some administrative issues and can't really plan any other activities before I know my appointment dates, it should really be giving me something useful to do with my time here. But ... I don't know, usually writer's block is not a serious issue for me and I have written essays in shorter periods of time but now ... I actually wonder whether this is not rather stage fright then a writer's block. I mean, I can't even make up my mind which aspect of my field research to write about!!! So, yes, maybe its really the fact that this is not 'just' for my supervisor but will be printed and potentially read by lots and lots of people. - And before you mention it, no a blog is something else. Its not even meant to be academically sound in terms of content and language!!! ... ... ... Oh, and before I give the wrong impression again: there is a part of me that is really really happy to be back in Maiduguri, its just that in terms of my research I should have moved on to Kano by now!!! As a private person I'm happy to be back here and have some more time with some people I really care about.

Back in Maiduguri

I have just arrived back from two weeks travelling on the occasion of the exhibition of the works that have come out of the British Council workshop in Kano I attended before Christmas. The exhibition entitled ‘Celebrating the Traditional Crafts of Northern Nigeria’ was held at Terra Kulture, a culture centre with restaurant and exhibition space on Victoria Island, Lagos. For the moment, just let me say how happy and grateful I am to be safely back in Maiduguri. I mean, I have done the nine to ten hour journey between Maiduguri and Abuja before and actually really enjoyed watching the landscape slowly getting less dry, lusher and more tropical the further south we get. The only thing I ever seriously worried – other then the pain in my back and legs – was the speed with which these cars manoeuvre these streets full of bigger and smaller potholes. And, as a matter of fact when Nabil and has Lagos based friend urged me to take a flight from Abuja to Lagos and back rather then a bus because the road wasn’t safe I didn’t really take them serious. It was more to appease Nabil who even told me he’d rather give me the money for the flights and know I’m safe then having me take the bus that I finally took a plane (using my own money, of course). Irony, irony, it appears that the car I took from Abuja on my way back here only narrowly escaped some armed robbers on the supposedly safe road between Damaturu and Maiduguri. In fact, I learned a young girl was shot. And that only a few minutes drive after an army check point. Had we left the motor park half an hour earlier, had the driver known the road (he usually serves the Abuja-Sokoto road and had to be directed by the passengers) and, hence, driven faster … I don’t even want to think about it and I’m just immensely grateful to be safely back in Maiduguri! For the moment …

Signature Gallery, Abuja

On my way back from Lagos to Maidguri I had another stop-over in Abuja and I used the day there to meet up with Hussein Akar, the owner of Signature Gallery in Abuja. He wasn’t around when I first popped by on Thursday on the way from the airport to Ella’s place but I was able to make an appointment for the next day. I was a bit nervous about meeting him because, despite the recommendation to see him by his uncle at the Signature Gallery in Lagos and Nabil’s friends, I wasn’t really quite sure whether I had enough questions for him to justify disturbing him. However, it turned out to be a really useful and interesting discussion. In fact, he was kind enough to call one Zaria graduate during our conversation to pass on one of my questions and provided me with his number and that of somebody at the Society of Nigeria Artists before I left. At the same time, his emphasis on Zaria graduates, Lagos as an important place of residence for artists from different parts of the country and also the art market, his suggestion that it might be more fruitful to go via galleries and the Society of Nigerian artists then local art schools in the north itself left me a bit insecure about my own approach. But maybe, because I am anyway not really satisfied with how I conducted things here in Maiduguri, this is a good impulse to further review and change my approaches … But this is something I will have to discuss with my supervisor first.

Goethe Institute

In addition to commercial galleries there are obviously also the foreign cultural institutes in Lagos, most prominently the Goethe Institute, the British Council and Alliance Francaise.
The Goethe Institute was currently holding a very interesting exhibition of works by Ayo Aina, a graduate of ABU Zaria, and I had originally meant to attend the opening on Saturday evening. However, unfortunately this was the day Zico’s business partners decided to come down to Lagos and I had to evacuate the room in his apartment – and after the panic attacks involved in searching for a hotel room on such short notice and finally having arrived at my new place in Obalende area it was already over an hour late and I honestly really wasn’t in the mood to leave the room again. I still think that this was really bad timing and I lost a good chance to make some interesting contacts in the town but there will another chance another time. Anyway, I finally went to the Goethe Institute on Monday morning hoping to make an appointment for some other day. I ended up having a brief but informative conversation with the director right then. I have to confess that I was a bit surprised b this and otherwise would probably have asked one or the other additional question but on the whole I think I got most of the information I had come for. The occasion of my visit had been that the Goethe Institute organised a workshop for photographers in Kano some time last year. During my brief visit in June/July I had attended the opening of the exhibition of the works that had come out of this workshop at the History and Culture Bureau in Kano. Now I was interested in some more background information on the workshop as well as other activities of the Goethe Institute in the northern region.
In addition I had planned to visit the Alliance Francaise in Lagos but between the other places I attended I didn’t really find time to do so. I would really have been interested in the reasons that the branch in Maiduguri was apparently closed and to clarify whether the Kano outlet is still active or, as somebody has suggested to me, largely stopped its cultural activities. I guess I will now have to find out from the branches.

Galleries

There must be quite a number o galleries in Lagos and I have certainly not visited all of them. However, I managed to have a look at some of them in the mornings before going to the National Gallery or in the afternoon after having finished there for the day. The first gallery I visited, apart from Terra Kulture where the works of the Kano workshop were exhibited, was Nimbus, a rather small space attached to a guest house in Ikoyi, just off Awolowo Road. I didn’t’ find any works by artists from the northern regions of Nigeria there but a good collection of back issues of New Culture Magazine as well as Nigeria Magazine which were on sell for 500 Naira (£ 2). Also on Awolowo Road are Signature Gallery and Quintessence, and, in fact, with the owner of the former I had a brief but quite interesting discussion about the current generation of artists in Zaria and why he thinks their works do not perform well at the art market. He also strongly recommended I speak to the owner of the Signature Gallery in Abuja in more detail. The biggest surprise was the Centre for Contemporary Arts, which is a new outfit based in Yaba. In contrast to the other places this one has been conceived more as a cultural centre with particular focus on contemporary arts. It has an exhibition space and a surprisingly extensive library. In addition the owner, Bisi Silva, also organises talks and presentations on the arts. In fact, she invited me to come back towards the end of my year in Nigeria and give a presentation, something along the lines of research notes. Well, I don’t mind having an excuse to come back and explore Lagos a bit further – although, compared to Maiduguri and even Abuja this town is a money eating monster and I will have to have a serious look at my finances before I make that decision.

National Gallery of Arts

In Maiduguri the keeper of the local branch of the National Gallery of Arts (NGA), Mr. Edore, had suggested I check out the archives and storage of the NGA in Lagos. He also explained that I would need to obtain clearance from the Head Office, if possible the Director General, in Abuja. Hence, before I went to Abuja I contacted their public relations officer and finally met with her the day after I arrived. She was very kind and helpful and introduced me to the Head of Curatorial Practices. He in turn wrote me a letter of introduction for the keeper in Lagos.
Once in Lagos, I went to the National Gallery. I was taken around the exhibition – which unfortunately only displays a limited number of works at the moment as the second exhibition floor is currently being renovated – and allowed access to the library, the storage of works and their files about works and the artists represented in their collection. Especially, the latter proved to be an interesting source about some of the better established artists from Zaria for which their contained extensive CVs. So much that I ended up spending almost three days making use of their facilities.

Terra Kulture

Terra Kulture

The advantage of flying to Lagos was that, despite a delay of about an hour, I arrived in good time to check out the exhibition at Terra Kulture still the first day. Practically, the exhibition venue was only 2 minutes drive from the apartment and Zico’s driver, who knew the place, dropped me there and picked me up again an hour later. Terra Kulture, by the way, seems to be a really lovely venue. On the ground floor there is a restaurant and on the second floor a quite big exhibition space.
The exhibition was entitled ‘Celebrating the Traditional Crafts of Northern Nigeria’ and showcased works produced during but also independently of the British Council/Prince’s School of Traditional Arts Workshop. They were beautifully showcased and, good news for the participants, a good number had already been sold. Unfortunately I had missed the opening of the exhibition for which all the workshops’ participants as well as Fossua and David, the course facilitators, had come down to Lagos. By the time I arrived most of them had already travelled back. Only Sadiq had stayed behind to attend to the exhibition and its visitors as well as represent CADDAK, the craft organisation formed by the course members.
Sadiq suggested that the feedback for the exhibition was very positive, something a member of the gallery staff confirmed. In fact, many visitors – Nigerian as well as expat – were surprised that Northern Nigeria had such beautiful art and craft traditions. This probably harks back to the general assumption expressed to me by many people that the north does, supposedly, not have any viable art traditions – and by implication meaningful contemporary arts. In fact, however, this exhibition and the works presented seem to have allowed CADDAK to make contacts with the local Chamber of Commerce who offered to assist them financially to attend and present their works at trade fairs.

Lagos

I’ve never been in Lagos before and had heard some not too encouraging stories about the dangers and pitfalls of this city. So, when one of Nabil’s best friends, Zico, offered to host me I was actually really grateful and relieved. Not only because this would save me quite a lot of money as accommodation in Lagos is really expensive but also because I offered that his driver could be me up at the airport – yes, airport. Both, Nabil and Zico strongly urged me to take a plane to Lagos rather then a bus as I had originally planned and with all that money for accommodation saved I had run out of arguments. So, I spend my first few days at Zico’s place at Victoria Island and, wow, what a change after four months without much power supply or running water!!! I mean, can you believe it: a proper shower with hot water! Well, and air condition, a well filled bar, a dart board in the lounge, a household help and a driver. Oh, and the guys were not only pretty nice and entertaining, they also took me out for dinner and a proper night out on Saturday! Only … I don’t know whether its my East German upbringing, all those socialist values coming through, or just that servants are not part of the lifestyle of anybody I know or … I don’t know, to me there is something weird about this kind of expat life style the guys introduced me to. I can’t really put my finger on it but … I mean, one of their friends actually told me that he’s in Nigeria for a few years now and has never taken suya (barbequed meat Nigerian style, delicious) and that’s not because he’s vegetarian or so! Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed getting some extremely nice Indian, Chinese and Tex-Mex food as a change from my usual diet of local dishes and the occasional Lebanese treat but … and also it was great to spend a whole night out chatting with the guys and dancing but having security escort you back to your car because it is not safe to go on your own kind of leaves a bitter after-taste. I mean, at the end of the day the insecurity of Lagos has a lot to do with the enormous gap between rich and poor in this country. I mean, this gap also exists in Maiduguri but somehow it appeared more clearly to me in Lagos – come on, a house help, a driver, security at the gate, air condition, outings which are paid for in 10.000s of Nairas on the one hand, piss poor beggars at the road side on the other hand, that just rubs it in. I don’t know, I don’t think I could live like that … and yes, I know that’s quite hypocritical in a way to say that because not only did I absolutely enjoy having European standards again for a few days (and chances are I will go back to them at the end of this year anyway) but even in Maiduguri I’m better off, enjoying a better life-style then many Nigerians and there I don’t really think about it …
Anyway, after a few nights, the guys got a short notice visit from some business partners and because the company pays for the apartment I had to quickly move out. Looking back that was actually quite funny, how Zico didn’t know how to tell me and ended up calling Nabil in Maiduguri to call me back in Lagos and break the news to me. And, how I then started to ring all the hotels in my guide book – and of course, the only one I actually got through didn’t have any room for the same day – and already saw myself sleeping under some bridge when Zico’s driver came to pick me up because I had to leave before my calls had achieved anything. In fact, they had already found a hotel for but neither Zico nor the driver had told me, so for two minutes I had a proper panic attack … anyway, the hotel turned out to be good value for money and was right back in Nigeria – I mean, streets bustling with traders and food stalls around it, bucket showers, cockroaches, air condition but the window doesn’t close anyway, suya, fried yam … what a change from Victoria Island and a pretty welcome one in a lot of regards. It took me a bit out of this bubble that expat life in Lagos appears to be to me. This is not to say that I’ve experienced anything close to the ‘real’ Lagos of most people based there – there were too many areas, especially at the mainland I didn’t go to, partly for lack of time (which I mainly spent at the National Gallery and about this more another time) and because I was told it would be pretty dangerous to go there on my own – even more so at night, to the extend that I was seriously told off for going out in the dark on my own to buy some dinner from a suya stall two corners away from my hotel, an area I was told was otherwise safe enough. But it certainly accorded me some independence and flexibility that I never feel I quite have if I’m staying with somebody else – and giving that there was a lot of things I felt I had to do in Lagos, a lot of places to go to – this was actually quite good.

Abuja

I’ve been in Abuja for a few days before but didn’t really enjoy it last, so apart from a chance to see Ella, a friend and recent graduate from the Department of Creative Arts here in Maiduguri, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. Even more so as I was hoping to attend the opening evening of the exhibition at Terra Kulture of the works that have come out of the British Council workshop in Kano I attended before Christmas. The exhibition entitled ‘Celebrating the Traditional Crafts of Northern Nigeria’ was held at Terra Kulture, a culture centre with restaurant and exhibition space on Victoria Island, Lagos. But couldn’t leave Maiduguri early because I was hoping to attend an event at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) branch here on 16 February and stopping over in Abuja made it impossible to reach Lagos in time. In the end I could have easily left earlier as the Saturday Art Club at the NGA didn’t take place, but that I only found out at the day itself. Anyway, I spent three nights in Abuja where I stayed with Ella and her family. And, while my primary objective had been to obtain a letter of clearance from the head quarters in order to use the archive and storage of the NGA in Lagos – being in Lagos anyway for the exhibition I can as well make the most of this say - Ella and I also visited some more art related places – in particular, the exhibition at the Arts and Culture complex and signature gallery. In addition Ella also tried to show me some of the places in Abuja she likes and/or thought would interest me. Unfortunately we didn’t have much time but still managed to get some lovely Italian style ice cream – the first proper ice cream I had since I’m in Nigeria –, go out one evening for snooker and some drinks, in effect the first time in months that I stayed out longer than my nine o’clock curfew here in Maiduguri, and visited some of her friends and family that are based in town … oh, and as they have a pretty reliable power supply where Ella stays in Abuja I also managed to watch most of the second serious of Ugly Betty, and if you’d seen how I was glued to that serious in London you’d know what that meant to me!!! So, yes, while I’m still not really a fan of Abuja this time I really enjoyed my stay – basically, thanks to Ella!

Lorry Painters in Maiduguri

Lorry Painters in Maiduguri

There are three main motor parks in Maiduguri and close to each of them there also appears a place where lorries are repaired and, assumingly, painted. And with painting lorries I don’t just mean spraying them in some colour but producing these wonderful designs that for me distinguish lorries and trucks here in Nigeria from those on German or English roads. [Just to give you an idea of how beautiful these trucks are check out some of my pictures: …] Generally the whole business of lorry painting is associated with Jos but since I am here I have seen trucks that appear to have been painted in numerous other places, in fact, every bigger centre of trade appears to have at least some lorry painters. This is at least the impression the signatures and contact details lorry painters practically often leave on their designs convey.

Anyway, it appears the there are no lorry painters at Tashin Kano, one of Maiduguri’s big motor parks. When we asked for them one evening last week workers there didn’t even really know what we were talking about – and my friend who accompanied is fluent in Hausa, so it wasn’t an issue of language. And, in fact, on Saturday an artist based close by confirmed to me that there actually are no lorry painters based there.

However, after that frustrated evening trying to find them at Tashin Kano I discovered a lot of those beautifully decorated trucks in a side street of West End Roundabout in an area where a lot of traders appear to be based. I took quite a few snaps, most importantly I came across one design that appeared to be executed in Maiduguri. Next day I returned with a printout of this particular motif and started asking around whether anybody knew the guys. And, luck being on my side, the guy who owned the truck pop up, took me down to Tashin Baga and helped me find two lorry painters. Another one was introduced to me on Friday when I was asking for one of them and nobody could locate him. And, finally, I also came across the one who did the body work of the motif I had printed out and turns out he’s in his seventies and must have been in the business for decades. Problem is I will need a translator to speak to him and I’m running out of time.

Anyway, I managed to talk to three of them … or rather I had a proper interview with one of them, the two others … well, basically I spend the morning being dragged around by them and shown off to different local officials and the afternoon to get them talk to me and commission some works while they spent the money I gave them to by (non-alcoholic) drinks on getting drunk around me. Anyway, while it’s not been a particularly pleasant and efficient afternoon I think I still managed to get some relevant information out of them and to commission them to each execute one of their designs on canvas for me. Today I was able to already collect two of them, another one – inshallah or by God’s grace – on Wednesday.

The interesting thing is that only one of the three lorry painters is originally from Maiduguri, and by this I mean that he was born and brought up in the town. In fact, it appears that he is a graduate of the Creative Arts Department at the University of Maiduguri. The other two did not only grow up outside the town and state but also had there training there – one in Kano and the other one in Jos. So, there might be some interesting links between the different places, maybe it might even be possible to come up with some kind of family tree.