MOST ARTISTS ARE GOING THROUGH THINGS

My artistic journey can be traced to my childhood experience, growing up on the streets of Iwaya, in the Makoko community of Lagos. When I was in my formative years, Auntie Motunrayo Abayomi always organised summer coaching classes for us that lasted for two to three weeks. We would have a cultural presentation on the final day. She taught us topics outside our primary school curriculum, including different songs that we would present to our parents wearing cultural attire. 

When I entered secondary school, I was a commercial student. I really wanted to become a banker or an accountant. So I enrolled on commercial courses. My mom sold pepper. My dad was a real estate agent. Unfortunately, I lost my parents in 2009 and 2012, so I was going through a lot. 

I worked for a telecommunications consulting company between 2016 and 2017 as an admin person and cleaner. It wasn’t going so well, so I decided to resign. I wanted something new. I was tired of working and getting ₦18,500 as salary. It couldn’t sustain me anymore. I wanted more. I had been exposed to different kinds of life. Going out to art events, seeing people … I wanted to seek more. 

In 2018, I saw a post on Facebook that a group was organising a one-year art school programme in my local community. So I was like, I think this would be a good opportunity for me. For that one year, I wasn’t working, and there was no funding. I didn’t have parents catering for me. 

After we finished building the space, we commenced classes in art, watching YouTube videos, running performances and assignments. During that period, there was no money coming in. At the end of the programme, I asked myself if I truly wanted to become an artist. My kind of practice is quite interdisciplinary, where my art spans across performance installation, graphic, video art, and research. And research has been the source of my strength recently. It allows me to look back, reflect on my past engagements, and my history to create a form of artistic statement.

The pleasure I derive from being an artist is that I get to tell my story. I ask myself, would accounting give me the same opportunity? Would it give me that opportunity to create worlds that will give the next generation a bigger imagination? The pleasure I derive from this practice is the possibility that whatever I think about, I can create it, and people will surely resonate with that creation.

I’ve not had a 9-5 job since I quit my last one in 2018. The idea of a salary is not in my calendar anymore. What I do mostly is to use that period when I don’t have anything to reflect, to research, and come up with a winning and competitive proposal. I have been relying on grants since 2021/22, when I won a grant from the Goethe Institut to create my first solo exhibition titled Son of a Peppered Seller. In 2023, I also won a grant to create a social art project on the extinction of local food culture in urban spaces titled Jeun Soke. Towards December 2024, I won another grant that gave me the opportunity to create my last exhibition before getting this residency. This is my fourth residency opportunity and I like the fact that it is coming locally. It really helps me to solidify my practice.

There are moments of regret, sincerely. There are times I would need money, and I would have to borrow and then refund whenever I get funding or I get a side job within the arts. Times you just have to eat what is available, not what you want to eat. 

There is a gap between the experiences of local artists and artists in other countries. Art practice in Western countries or in Europe is quite favourable because there are budgets, there are programmes that the artists over there can bank on, there are residencies and opportunities that the artists can leverage on because their governments consider them as part of the workforce. But over here, there’s nothing. Artists always look up to the Westerners, the Europeans, for opportunity, for funding to create work. So it is more of a struggle. The poor condition of artists is reflected in the studios. Most artists use their houses or backyards to create works. And there are no gallery representatives to mentor them. You have to take care of yourself.

I think the biggest challenge is funding. And the periods between getting funding can be a big challenge for artists particularly, because you are going to have a backlog of debts. You don’t have any salary, so how are you sustaining yourself if you don’t have a business you are running on the side to survive? So, there’s that anxiety where you just have to be looking up to God for an answer to that your proposal. I am talking personally based on my own practice. There are some artists, possibly painters, who, within one or six months, will surely have work to sell. But my kind of creations are not sellable, they are more of institutional projects, projects that help people acquire new knowledge about certain things. 

We live in a digital community. What we see on Instagram is quite different from what the artist is experiencing. Most artists are going through things, but on their Instagram page, you will see a different picture. But there is this courage that artists always have. That ability to wait is something inspiring from the few artists that I know, that something will surely turn out for them.

For me, I have gone about two years without funding. You have to manage the little you have and look for other means of surviving. If somebody calls for an artist assistant, you have to go there to pay yourself and move on while you are still waiting for funding. Sometime last year, I worked as a coffee shop attendant, helping a friend manage his business, while waiting for funding. You just have to find a hustle. Working as a production assistant for fashion, films, and the rest.

Managing funding when it finally arrives is something difficult for me personally, because by the time it comes, you must have suffered for over six months. Your clothing, your bills, you have to settle that. You have to settle debts. You have to support your struggling friends. And also you have to think about the work, because the money is not for you to enjoy; you have to create the job and work with people. So at the end of the day, the funding will not even be enough to sustain yourself until the next one comes. I’m working towards other means of sustaining myself and sustaining a family. If possible, it can be more of a research thing or a business within the arts, you can use as a substitute till you get funding.

My target for the next five years is to build my portfolio, in the sense of having degrees and also building a strong institution around my practice. I am currently working on building an institution called the Centre for Food Culture. My art has been based on food and the rest, so I want to build a centre that serves as a medium of addressing socio-cultural issues such as hunger and food scarcity within local communities.

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As narrated by: OLUFELA OMOKEKO (LAGOS, NIGERIA).