NIGERIAN CULTURAL FESTIVAL
OPENS OCTOBER 1ST
By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted September 28, 2017)
Nigeria’s National Day of
Independence is this coming Sunday, October 1st. According to Paulina Otieno,
it will be a day of fabulous celebrations, “much like what we have back home,”
says the Nigeria-born fashion designer and entrepreneur.
Paulina promises that from
noon on Sundayat the Nairobi Gallery, the celebrations will feature everything
from Nigerian food and fashion to live Nigerian music and dancing by several professional
West African bands and dancers.
Coincidentally, Sunday is
also the day the 2nd Nigerian Arts Festival opens at Nairobi Gallery
where the Grand Opening will officially begin from 2pm. The Kenyan Cabinet
Secretary of Culture, Arts and Sports Dr. Hassan Wario has promised to be on
hand as will the new Nigerian High Commission.
Pauline has had a hand in
organizing the Grand Opening of the Festival. But she has worked closely with
the curator of the Gallery, Alan Donovan who staged the 1st Nigerian
Cultural Festival exactly 50 years ago, in 1967 at the now defunct Studio Arts
68.
Back then, Mr Donovan, who
is also the CEO and founder of African Heritage House, had recently come from
Nigeria where he had worked for USAID during the dark days of the Biafran war.
It was in Nigeria that
Donovan discovered the beauty of West African art up close. He had actually
studied it as a graduate student at UCLA in the States several years earlier.
But his first purchases of African art were in Lagos and Oshogbo, the famous
art city, where he met many active artists and gave his heart to collecting and
showcasing African textiles, arts, fashions, jewelry and crafts.
“This 2nd
Nigerian Cultural Festival is meant to commemorate 50 years since I dedicated
myself to African art,” says the co-founder, with Kenya’s former Vice President
Joseph Murumbi, of the African Heritage Pan-African Gallery. The two men
launched that gallery in the early 1970s; it became world renowned up until its
demise in the early 21st century.
One of the special
features of African Heritage over the years was the Gala Night which will be
revived this coming October 18th. The same day, Nike is scheduled to
speak on Nigerian batik art. And in the evening, the Kenyan musician Papillon
will launch his new album ‘Heart of Africa’ with his mentor Ayub Ogada.
But from the 1st,
three of Nairobi’s leading CBD cultural venues will join hands to celebrate
Nigerian culture. Together with Nairobi Gallery, the Festival will be happening
at the Nairobi National Museum and Alliance Francaise.
At all three venues, the
visual artworks of more than 20 Nigerian artists will be on display, including
those of two of the country’s internationally acclaimed artists: Bruce Onobrakpiya
and Nike Seven Seven Okunfaye who is best known as a batik artist but is so
much more than that.
Most of the rest of the
artists who will be represented over the month are closely connected with Nike
who has both the biggest art and cultural centre in Lagos. She also owns the
largest craft and community centre at Oshogbo, a village originally started by
Germans, Ulli Beier and Suzanne Wenger. Subsequently, countless artists of all
kinds have come and created at Oshogbo. It’s been a thriving community for
poets, painters, playwrights and traditional textile designers like Nike who
won’t be coming to Kenya until later on this month. But her colorful batik art
will be here along with the art works of other well-known Nigerian artists.
On October 9th,
Alliance Francaise will launch an exhibition of ‘The Vanishing Textiles of
Africa.’ They’ll be textiles that Mr Donovan collected during his half century
of travels around the region and are now permanently resident at the African
Heritage House.
Historically, the African
Heritage Gala Nights have been extravaganzas that are most memorable. This 50th
anniversary of the Gala Nights is bound to be special as well as it will
feature both Kenyan and Nigerian bands and dancers plus original African
fashions, all of which are made with textiles, many of which are now rare or
have vanished altogether. So the Festival is bound to be an excellent way to
take one’s mind off national issues and enjoy the ways that West Africans
celebrate and create.
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