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| Wura Comfort Akinpalu Morakinyo Ogunji |
I am working on a performance which is based on the relationship
between my Nigerian grandparents, Gilbert and Wura. It was recently
confirmed that my grandfather's family was Muslim, while my
grandmother's was Christian. My grandfather converted to
Christianity and became a pastor which led him to travel all over
Nigeria--Kano, Kaduna, Zaria. The meta-narrative
of this performance is about Muslim-Christian relationships set
against the backdrop of current religious conflicts in this nation
(of Nigeria). As I develop the piece, however, I am struck by the
fact that in telling that particular story I am forgetting about what
came before, what is so easy to forget: Islam and Christianity, two
colonizing religions, did not always exist. There was a time when
they didn't exist at all. Imagine that world.
I am thinking about the conditions that made it possible for my grandparents to meet, come together, marry, have children. Attraction, love, longing, politics, family? Roads crossed. While this lineage intersects with Islam and Christianity it goes back further. How do I account for what came before? I find myself obsessively looking for archival film footage of a time before moving pictures even existed, so I'll settle for anything right now which includes a smattering of anthropological films and newsreels with condescending overdubs.
The
pinhole camera is the great ancestor to photography and film. I have
long been entranced by the idea that our people long ago watched moving images. Why wouldn't they? Light entering
between leaves in the forest, projecting the movement of clouds
overhead; a hole in the wall of a shelter or home reflects the
upsidedown dance of people walking and talking just outside.
Chronicles of a Lying Spirit by Kelly Gabron (a film by Cauleen Smith)
I
recall Cauleen Smith's 'Chronicles of a Dying Spirit'. This film is a
brilliant portrait of a girl, no, an artist making herself, recalling history,
speaking about the moving image, making film. The story
changes, repeats, and leaves a stunning after effect. Wait, I think
the title is actually 'Chronicles of a Lying Spirit'. I so strongly
remember the words of this spirit, girl, woman, 'I decided I'll just
have to make my own damn films.' That is how I remember it.
I
am working on a performance—a film?—about the history
of my grandparents, about their love story, about the history of
Nigeria, before it was even Nigeria, about the history of colonizing
religions like Islam and Christianity, about what we believed before
(and now), about our relationship to the land and each other, about the history of the universe, this universe, about
the moving image before film.
