Before the end of the year two contemporary artistes, Gerald Eze, a musician and Chuma Anagbado, an artist and designer will have their joint exhibition in Lagos.
During the exhibition, 16 artworks will be on display.
Gerald says our ancestors explored the Oja and Ugba in the village square but I try to explore Oja music in High life, Hip Hop, Afro Jazz which has been successful.
Gerald goes on to say Chuma has been developing his ideas in the art which has taken him some years to establish.
“It is an idea which time has come and eventually, we have to meet. Both of us are of like minds, let us come together, put out something that is collaborative in our culture i.e music and arts in the NFT space. “
In the same vein, Chuma talking about the collaboration noted a sense of community is very important for the igbos at this moment.
“The artist is always taking a lead in creating the consciousness of his thoughts in making people reason critically.
“For both os us to collaborate on this project, we are putting it out there because it is important we come together. Those os us with like minds, we cannot grow independently, we can develop independently but to sustain the growth, we have to come together because we cannot grow our culture when we are apart. The collaboration is there and we will like to focus on our community.
“The sounds and symbols of the Igbo did not just come to you from one person but they come to you from two creative person’s tat have travelled far and wide collecting ideas, connecting to people who have written different forms.
These works when it gets to people, it will communicate that essence of community. Whatever we have embedded in the works truly belongs to the Igbo culture.
Chuma says as an entrepreneur and my works try to create a sense of community which seeks to build a people and how I do that is that I imagine the different elements of Igbo culture and I take side of my experiences, idioms, music, illustrations, motifs, frameworks, mannerisms. Basically taking anything and everything that emanates from that culture and re-imagine it and place it within a modern context in a way that it is not just a slap-on but it is functional and useful that people can own it and be proud of it.
“ Whether it is art, furniture, designing spaces, designing an experience or event or setting up a platform or building an enterprise. that is basically what I do.
Gerald Udenze, a lecturer at the Department of Music, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Akwa says I am a musician, performer, researcher.
“ I am interested in indigenous musical instruments of the Igbo particularly the Oja and the Ugbaka. I explore these other instruments but I have focus on the Oja and I engage communities in Akwa where I live and different communities in Umoji. I visit there and engage the children so I can say am an intinery musician.
Particularly, I teach children to pick up these instruments, it now helps them to grow and do better and even beyond whatever could have imagined.
Gerald adds I have been exploring the Oja music, one of the most prominent instruments in Igbo culture, you hear it in Nollywood but there are stereotypes and most times people would say when things wants to happen, you will hear the Oja but the instrument is more beyond that, So, I play it beyond the combination or instrumentation beyond Oja. I try to explore Oja and guitar, Oja and Piano, Oja in Afrojazz and to make it possible for people to relate with the sound in their very fresh experience of life at the moment.
Talking about the collaboration, Gerald adds Chuma does the same thing with arts, it wasn’t difficult for us to connect and it wasn’t out of the world that we said we have to collaborate. It just happened naturally and indeed the Igbo culture art has always being integrative, music, arts, philosophy, literature and they come together.
“ To grow the consciousness of the Igbo music to put it out for people to enjoy, most times times, the person who works with signs will need the person who works with sounds. the person who works with signs will need the person who works with this sound. The connection is what will reveal the real genius that the world will experience. I and Chuma has been on this.
Chuma added we have been on this for some years but independently but we just connected few months ago. we began a journey to say look lets come together and work together. We have been doing our separate things but now we want to do a collaboration.
Chuma I have always been a child of our culture and the culture chose me. It probably took me a while to realize that all of what I have been doing is all streamlined in one direction. I recently had a hybrid art exhibition in Enugu of Igbo masqueradings, spirituality, visual rose and answers and it was an ensemble of what the igbo culture is.
If you look at the way we did arts before the external influence and interference, art for us was not something that you put on the wall, it was not arts for art sake but it was embedded in the culture. it was part of an event, social event, it could be a naming ceremony or burial and you had people create these things that you would like, it could be colorful, hear, touch, feel or engage with. it was a total creative experience. if you look at the masquerading for example, it has costumes like visual arts that is very colorful but the masquerade also talks which is performance. The masquerade had an audience which pretty much was our own form of theatre and the masquerade had a social role to play in terms of checking society, controlling and even policing the society as the case is. what I tried to achieve with that exhibition is to show that this our art is an embodiment of experiences and expressions. the exhibition featured printed artworks, a live masquerade that performed within a large space. it was a prolific experience and there was performances from spoken word artistes.
That has also led me into the whole block chain revolution which is the NFT.
I think it is something that has allowed us as curators, to go back into what we had and simply bring it back. Our ancestors were actually creating NFT before the block chain was invented. That journey that I got connected into the creative community in Enugu though i live in Lagos and I got across Gerald’s works and i saw it fascinating that this young man was playing all of these instruments that I was already drawing and exhibiting. We were already working together before we even met each other because I see it as a gathering of the kindred spirit and we are just finding ourselves.
It is a natural feat and what we creating now is our culture and doing it for the blockchain. We are putting it out as NFTs and take our culture and put it where it is supposed to be.
“ Am creating the arts and he is scoring the music and that becomes a piece, an animated piece that is then put as NFT and that is what we should be doing at this moment
Gerald Eze promotes Oja music by exploring it in novel textures and styles thereby breaking the bounds of culture and instrumentation. He demonstrates an excellent understanding of Igbo traditional music especially in theorizing and performing Oja music.
Chuma Anagbado is versatile, innovative and multi-talented. His works cut across traditional, digital and emerging creative medium