Before you clicked “read”, you may have expected some story about my personal environment or community.
Well, no, I am talking about The Neighborhood Artist residency in Bariga.
I was opportune to discover it, thanks to the handsome mop hair who out rightly calls himself an asshole… He wishes.
My first invite was for a movie screening- a documentary of Thomas Sankara, which left me triple dazed afterwards… From the movie, the Skype call with Babajide Adeniyi Jones and of course food. Yes dears, refreshments!
And my second invite was to an intimate conversation with two outstanding artists, which this time, had me mentally shaken.
On my first visit, no one prepared me for the number of stairs I had to climb nor the turnout.
I don’t know what I was expecting but hey! People showed up. I showed up. We connected. We learnt.
My personal takeout from this day was the reality of being a non-conformist, how laughable our present wokeness is and the existing exchange of greed & oppression.
I wish I could find the words to really break it down but for the lack of exact expression and not words, if you preach the message of equality, justice, good governance and anti African oppression, this documentary should be on your research list.
My second visit was more or less about a personal reaffirmation.
I arrived on time, so I had the opportunity to sit through casual conversations before the main get together started.
I’ll have to admit there is still a need for self- taught to get professional.
For someone like me who struggles not to deal in coins of pride, it was so painful to learn about the “scholarly” aspect of poetry. *More reason to take up that course sis!*
The turn out was better than my first visit, in the sense that we were not so much.
The conversations were with Kene Nwatu & Em’kal Eyongakpa. Of course, poetry. There was poetry.
As I earlier said, I was mentally shaken.
My appreciation of the abstract overwhelmed me to a point that I questioned if creativity can be defined.
On my way home and till date, I can’t seem to stop thinking about how much consciousness we (creatives) have that limits us into evolving and creating something that lives even after we die.
Making the above statement because of a certain clip which was shared by one of the artists as something he draws inspiration from.
To the average man or even some creatives, watching that video would send them into serious outbursts of laughter or in my case at first, a questioning eyebrow.
Honestly, everything about this evening was strong. Maybe not the poetry. Where was my mind during that? I don’t know.
One thing you must note alongside this small community is the fact that, in the midst of more than 1, I observe more than I speak.
The Drunken Writer is quiet o. ???
Love and light!
