Are workshops replacing art schools?
Workshops, in consequence, have become avenues for limitless artistic encounters: exchange/the trying out of new ideas and the expansion of the range of creativity in contemporary art practice/production. Art workshops, as consigned to the margins of formal art education, are making inroads into art in approach and subject matter content specific. Workshops usually concentrate on […]
Workshops, in consequence, have become avenues for limitless artistic encounters: exchange/the trying out of new ideas and the expansion of the range of creativity in contemporary art practice/production.
Art workshops, as consigned to the margins of formal art education, are making inroads into art in approach and subject matter content specific. Workshops usually concentrate on techniques, interaction, process and product and so becomes complimentary to, without being in education institutions in Nigeria that are usually more theoretical, strict in skills development, instructional competition with, formal classroom/studio orientations of art teaching and devoid of the pressures of commercial concerns. Mainstream art education sometimes is not even considered a useful subject in some schools by education authorities in Nigeria, let alone argue for workshops as non-formal forms. In the past, the colonial government in Nigeria preferred to train clerks and administrators. Chidum Onuchukwu of the department of Fine Arts at Ahmadu Bello University, had observed in an American Art Education publication in 1994 that “art was not considered important to meet this end and was therefore still excluded from the school curriculum.
Workshops are therefore mostly designed to stimulate and foster creativity as well as to encourage experimentation and exchange of ideas among peers (within short periods) who are sometimes themselves formally trained but need time, out of daily routines, distractions and pressures to produce works in a different environment. Other types of workshops include training through the apprenticeship system of education which is principally by practice and imitation of the master as well as other workshops where experts were called in to teach others his work mode/style by collective participation. The Oshogbo experiment was propagated by three expatriates; Ulli Beier, Giorgina Beier and Suzanne Wenger who did not believe in the formal training of artists in art schools then. They therefore set up workshops and trained artists and organized exhibitions of such resulting works in Nigeria and Germany, showing mainly stylistic and conceptual forms drawing sources of inspiration from traditional African folktales as well narrating stories in their paintings.
Prominent and successful products of the Oshogbo training include Twin Seven Seven (Taiwo Olaniyi), Muraina Oyelami, Jimoh Buraimoh and Rufus Ogundele. The Ori-Olokun was set up by another expatriate:Michael Crowther and explored by Irien Solomon wangboje at the then University of Ife as an extension of the Oshogbo workshop with Wale Olajide and Rafiu Oladepo as main exponents.
The Mbari experiment though established in Ibadan in the late 50s, conducted workshops in the early 60s for a wider variety of artistic activities: writers and artists under the direction of Demas Nwoko while the Abayomi Barber apprenticeship workshop experimentation propagated surrealism in the treatment of forms in painting. Muri Adejimi and Olu Spencer remain conspicuous ‘apostles’ of Abayomi Barber’s photograph-like realism. The influence and impact of the proponents of the workshop experiments on art practice in Nigeria are as immense as those of their formally trained counterparts.
Unframed Landscapes
This became the title of an Installation and Performance Art workshop; a collaboration between the Goethe-Institut, Lagos and the Departments of Fine Arts and Industrial Design at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria for a period of 10 days in March 2008. The workshop was conceived by Emeka Udemba, a Nigerian visual artist based in Germany, sponsored by the Goethe Institute under the supervision of the then Director, Arne Schneider, under the guidance of Dr Ahmed Saliu, head of Fine Arts Department at Ahmadu Bello University; and co-ordinated by Prof. Tonie Okpe with assistance from Dr. Ken Okoli and Rasaq Yusuf with 15 participants made up of students and teachers.
The stage set included materials procured and made available in abundance for experimentation to begin; the avalanche of creative work that followed was neither predictable nor expected because of the initial discussions on the theme of exploring the possibility of looking at everyday things as important components of life and reducing them into the barest minimalist essence of the paradigms of simplicity.
Creating work outside of the confinements of timetable, narrowness of instructions, inbuilt sense of self-limitation and fear of the other person’s ability gave way to intercultural exchange, exchange of ideas, helping one another to come to decisions about individual work and the dislocation of existential mode of relating to creativity within a workshop setting. Gradually, a firm sense of friendship, openness and readiness to work together in order to learn the different techniques of temporary art was achieved.