Amoda explains Windows of Dream

African art has been described as being grounded in amalgamation and recycling. According to a journal named Sourcing Locally, “in a number of African-based practises, objects are created from materials that are perceived to have the power to achieve a desired effect or to communicate with a metaphysical power.” The journal also said recent art […]

African art has been described as being grounded in amalgamation and recycling. According to a journal named Sourcing Locally, “in a number of African-based practises, objects are created from materials that are perceived to have the power to achieve a desired effect or to communicate with a metaphysical power.”

The journal also said recent art from Africa demonstrates the creator’s ingenuity in using available materials which has a positive impact on their local economies. “El Anatsui has forcefully demonstrated the potentials of discarded elements with his hangings of metal bottle caps and metal sheathes around bottle necks. In the same light Olu Amoda makes sculptures and security doors from found metal parts from has emerged Windows of Dream edition 2010,” the journal added.

On his creative process, Amoda said he is guided by latent energy [the accumulative consciousness of the object], experienced beauty of the barb-wire patterns on the security fences in Lagos and political activism in most African countries.

“The guiding concept also is based on the premise that found-objects gain value in sculptural construction, which, in turn, reproduces the aesthetic as these objects collectively represent an amalgam of socio-cultural movement and the work art in a three-dimensional mass that informs.”

In arguing that found-objects are repurposed materials, the artist said artistes explored the cycle of objects using nails in musing rustic lives of two cities where the work commenced and was completed: Lagos and New York.

“In repurposing nails, I attempt to make a connection between postmodern sculptural assemblage and governance in the sense the union is provoked by civil strife in most African countries.  This strife also is provoked by internal rife, peer pressure toward want of a better life, religious intolerance and political representation in government.”

Even more provoking of sculptural expression, is that Windows of Dream edition 2010 is symbolic of the dilemma of displaced persons which results from civil strives, in which the mostly affected are women and children; worsened by Nigeria’s oil boom and the corruption associated with it.

Explaining the piece, Amoda said “to many people in the West, this is the Global African Project. Nails, the material of engagement, here, are a metaphor for the resilience of craved economic survival evidence in the burnt houses of the displaced people. The fifty three padlocks represent counties in Africa and thus the issues relating to the country’s internal and external economic siege.”