#tirednigerianartist

[tirednigerianartist]

[tirednigerianartist]

How energy depleted are we? Can the energy demands vs supply of a nation directly correlate to the level of weariness of its citizens. Can the conversation begin with our acceptance of how exhausted we are?  

I accept that I am exhausted. There is a place in me, right above my heart space that is deeply exhausted and weary of the world, of the models, tools, languages that has been passed down that make absolutely no sense to my body and the environment as a photographer, art worker, artist and documentarian working mostly in the global south.

Dismantling begins when we allow this exhausted side to speak and unravel all the untruths- dismantling begins when we allow ourselves flow over the containers - dismantling begins when we allow ourselves to feel, feel deeply, feel painfully and allow that feeling to trouble the untruths that exist within or around us. Key word is to allow. Favourite word is soft - I use it as much as possible as a verb, as an adjective, as an affirmation, an activation,  an invitation to soften and break and stay in the break. And allow that break to inform my next actions.

Inside the break is a formless place, a place of survival. Here I run on 100 percent intuition - I allow this intuition to rearrange, transform, clear and shift things. Tired Nigerian Artist was formed from this place.

My journey as a photographer/artist has been shifted by time periods marked by a loss of faith and disillusionment  of the frameworks in place that rule the way my work can exist. walking became central to my practice as a refusal, an effort to liberate myself from the limiting frameworks that surrounded me.

Tired Nigerian Artist  was a way for me to process the many catastrophes that were coming into my field of awareness that seemed to threaten my existence and that of the communities I was a part of.  To be a Nigerian independent, freelance photographer, photojournalist often underpaid working in precarious conditions, especially during the pandemic, a recession, with increasing insecurity, without the proper support systems was something that began to feel increasingly unsafe and untenable.

When faced with what’s perceived as an inescapable or overwhelming threat, both humans and animals instinctively use fight, flight and freeze responses as survival mechanisms. These powerful instinctual mechanisms release a surge of survival energy which, if not discharged spontaneously, can get trapped, literally frozen in time, in the nervous system and muscle tissue.  This frozen energy affects our body and mind and alters the conscious or unconscious way of perceiving and living life.

A part of me is still frozen in those months in 2020. Tired Nigerian Artist and its subsequent guidebooks for rest was a necessary discharge of this energy. Here in the pages and podcasts of the guide book we can pause, feel things, feel things deeply, we can speak, we can express, we can complain, we can talk back, we can fight back, in Tricia Hersey’s voice, we can rest.

What has kept Nigeria together is brute force and forgetfulness. Also what has kept Nigeria together is a suppression of alternative spaces, beliefs, bodies, thoughts - the suppression of the new and the troublesome.

Tired Nigerian Artist (TNA)  is my work of errant behaviour, my work of anomaly, of fissure, of pure visceral response. TNA was the work I didn’t know I was going to make in 2020.

When the pandemic hit and governments around the world were dispersing emergency funds to their artists, and there was a resounding silence in Nigeria, I realised that a certain level of transformation, political awareness and consciousness was needed from myself to fully grasp and survive what it means to be an artist working and living in Nigeria. Though some private actions have been made towards this very belatedly. I have to ask is it enough or can we do more beyond the superficial and temporary.

Tired Nigerian Artist began by asking simple questions, who cares for us? Where is the centre of this creative ecosystem in Nigeria? What is the true intent of this system?  Who speaks for our welfare and wellbeing? Who do we call to account or call on in a crisis in this system? Where is the safety net? With these questions an uncontrollable rage started to bubble up to the surface.

If I am quiet and I ask myself, where does this rage come from, I hear a small voice respond.

“I am enraged because I don’t know how to feel safe in this world, safe in my body, safe in my environments, safe in the photography world, safe in the art world, safe in Nigeria, safe in London, safe with lovers, safe with family, safe with friends”

Find our Rest Guide’s at www.arestguide.com 

[tirednigerianartist]

It’s painful. It’s sad. It is the reality we were given.

It feels like a dream that real change might come. I recall moments from my childhood where my parents tried their best to hide Nigeria from me. I remember seeing through it all and I remember the heartbreak. I remember asking questions, a lot of questions, most of them starting with ‘why’.

It feels like a dream that real change might come. I recall moments from my time in Uni; how I narrowly escaped being a victim of police brutality. How I did not realize at the moment because I was too much in shock. How I tried to bury the memory because I did not want to live a life of fear.

It’s painful. It’s sad. Real change is coming.

[tirednigerianartist]

Repetitions, returns, black lives, black tiles and black magic boxes, the Instagram cosmos, solar flares, social media rage and coronal winds. Are the right elements in place for alchemy? To turn lead into gold? 

It may have been the morning before my long walk, either the 25th or 26th of May I started to see #georgefloyd appear on my instagram feed. I went to Twitter and watched Chauvins knee on Floyd’s neck in an approximately  eight minute press down. I felt my own breath start to catch in my throat.

If I really think back to why I began walking it was because I couldn’t breathe. I felt the familiar low frequency tension in my chest begin to hum an octave louder than usual.

I went for a long walk that morning, passing through the dual carriage way of Shehu Shagari way, towards a closed Millenium park. Closed since the Covid -19 pandemic triggered the lockdown of a park that had taken on multiple roles for me over the years, as a healer, a friend and a listener. 

I missed the park but I still wanted to be close, so I walked towards the wilder, less kept areas un-enclosed by fencing. This area was unfamiliar walking grounds, less friendly, but it would have to do for now. I had been connecting with a vibrant Neem tree for about a week, that at the time was producing small yellow-green fruits known for their healing properties. I would commune with her every morning, eating her leaves and her fruit as medicine for my chest hum.

I once asked a friend what she thought the hum was, she said it was the signs of anxiety, a mixture of high levels of cortisol and adrenaline in my bloodstream. I always thought it was simply because my heart was awakening and healing at the same time.

Usually a walk of about one hours duration stills the hum. After an hour and a half of circumambulation, there was no relief. After eating a few leaves, I walked away from my Neem tree towards another tree that looked half way between dying its bark, skin stripped back and porous revealing visible scarring. I crouched beneath its shadow.  

The sun sounds in the video are a close approximation of what I think the hum would sound like if I could record it.

[tirednigerianartist]

In the past decade, as part of the project of Western internationalist expansion that I mentioned earlier Western collectors, curators and critics have initiated a process of neo-primitivising African artists as a condition for their appearance and visibility in the West. Some of the artists as a condition for their appearance and visibility in the west, have been given entry to the most prestigious spaces in the West on the condition that they are or appear naive, untrained, inarticulate and often unskilled in the manipulation of the specific materials they are encouraged to employ. 

 Often too, part of the condition has been their habitation outside the west, which makes it possible for them to be ‘discovered’. This equally ensures that they do not compete for permanent place in western internationalism. They are introduced as circus animals as curiosities from the dark continent whose purpose is to amuse the west, provide for a foil for the continued valorisation of the white/master genius and help create the impression of an “expanding” internationalism”…. The neo-primitivisation of artists of African descent, therefore, is a deliberate, nasty game of mischief fundamentally rooted in an inclination to otherise and ridicule. And this too is a race issue.

 Artists of African descent who defy the above categorisation fail to attract the attention of the establishment because their existence questions deep-seated racial convictions and anxieties.

 Fear - that fear which James Baldwin so clearly identified and theorised, the fear that the west might lose the only backdrop against which it can project itself in full power and glory -is at the root of its culture of intolerance. The West is not ready yet to see an equal Other, and as Chinua Achebe said, until this happens, until the West and it’s Establishments are ready to acknowledge the humanity of artists of non-occidental descent, to accept them for what they are; artists and human beings; contemporaries; the deep flaws of western internationalism cannot be remedied.

 Excerpts from “A brief note on Internationalism” written by Olu Oguibe re-published in “South as a state of mind” magazine 

“Fuck off” illustration by Olatunde Alara for TNA

[tirednigerianartist]

a healer

a shaman

a witch

a magician

an image-maker

a bitch

an insane person

a native informant

a meme

a caricature

[tirednigerianartist]

Who pushes the most seductive algorithms and narratives on Instagram?  And can we truly resist these narratives as passive participants on these platforms?

If Instagram as an American owned application is seen as an extension of the American nation state, does that make us de-facto American citizens? Are we minorities in this nation state? What are the rules of engagement in this supposedly democratic state? Does it function harshly like a nation-state with punishments if we break the rules? Are we all equal on this platform? If so, what are our obligations and rights as citizens? Can we express in the full spectrum of our expressions even when we are being watched by possible employers, family members or hostile voyeurs.  If our timelines are flooded with American news should we join in protest against American injustices?

The longer I mediate the world through Instagram the more I forget the specificities of my body and where it’s located. I simply become a concept a profile picture. My timeline is filled with black women expressing anger, rage, pain. Is this as a result of the algorithms, or is Instagram taunting me on purpose?

Is my timeline a meta-mirror of my own pain, rage inner child woundings asking to be reviewed? When Black life is put in question in any space it speaks directly to my identity and my core, I can’t help but be affected, unravel and regress.

Can a phrase like “Black Lives Matter”, a word, a symbol act as a sort of activation, awakening our emotional and nervous systems with a reaction that stirs to action? I’m thinking about how magic spells could work in real life with a sort of neuro-linguistic hypnotic charge electrifying angry disembodied thought forms into digital space with intent and purpose, to manipulate our emotions and stimulate our nerve endings to react.

In June, I felt like a disembodied porous  avatar on Instagram and the consequences of sensing myself in that way were taking a toll on my actual body. In June, my left eye was red and swollen. For days I couldn’t see through it without tears streaming down my face.

In June, every post felt like a  double-edged projectile wounding my followers and wounding myself. Each post is an explosive device. Each post could be my last post.

[tirednigerianartist]

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The one minute forty two second footage above is edited from broadcasts of me performing sleep on my Instagram Live with sun gifs and sounds of the sun from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

“We don’t have straightforward ways to look inside the Sun. We don’t have a microscope to zoom inside the Sun, so using a star or the Sun’s vibrations allows us to see inside of it,” says Alex Young, associate director for science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

I’ve been thinking a lot about new ways of seeing, deep space, Instagram and the sun. Solar winds from the sun's corona have decimated the electromagnetic fields of planets for eons producing fallible rocks and flawed spheres. My empathic body is emotionally processing holes in the ozone layer and holes in my own digital outer layer. These holes are haemorrhaging what exactly?  love? light? blood? life? clarity? wellbeing? health? followers?

Earth is undergoing a crisis, a fracturing and a transformation. I am too. Maybe I’m not conscious or strong enough to fully understand or navigate this moment as a highly functioning digital avatar. I am reactive like the sun. And I am allowing myself to react to the emotional, mental, metaphysical, climactic, digital algorithmic lashings of this time.  

I can feel myself splitting. I am undergoing a sort of digital rupture. Suddenly, cleaved from my digital flesh there are two of us. My problem is solved, I can be in two places at once.

1. Inside the screen, a receiver of algorithmic code targeted at me, socially engaged and enraged 

2. Outside the screen, observing, watching, documenting

I am not centred, so you won’t get facts here, just more biases, fake news and disinformation.

It is the month of June. There are currently over 500,000 people dead from the Corona virus. I am in Nigeria, the borders have closed, no flights in or out. There is news that there might be food shortages due to failed harvests in the northern part of the country. The price of food has gone up, that means more desperate people.  I am having an existential crisis of faith in the ability of the world and in particular the art photography matrix which I have aligned with over the last couple of years to handle me with care and keep me safe through these times. The silence in the local arts community over George Floyd’s death proves this to me.

So, what do I do with all my thoughts, feelings and contradiction? Where does that go if it doesn’t fit neatly into the categories given? Or if it can’t be bought and sold as a commodity in Nigeria or outside?

I am full of holes porous and leaking. I’m sharing my inner thoughts on Instagram to followers at the same time protests erupt around the world. I can only see the residues of these real time protests and activism on my Instagram feed but they hold an emotional charge that seeps into me.

I am watching this digital activism around the world from my bedroom in Abuja, Nigeria. I am paying more attention than I usually do after being locked down in my home for weeks. The posts feel more stringent, more urgent and more personal in this time of endless calamity, pandemic and catastrophe with no end in sight.

What gets added or lost when digital social movements like Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion and earlier with the Occupy movements cross national, cultural or our own psychic borders? We know the violent repercussions when these digital movements are taken up in culturally specific ways.

#BlackLivesMatter has seeped into my being and I am undergoing a breakdown.

[tirednigerianartist]

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A post shared by Tired Nigerian Artist (@tirednigerianartist) on Jun 25, 2020 at 11:26pm PDT

I feel nauseous

disoriented

tired.

Who cares for us? 

Where is the centre of this creative ecosystem in Nigeria? What is the true intent of this system? Who speaks for our welfare and wellbeing? Who do we call to account or call on in a crisis? Since visual arts became my centre I haven’t given too much thought as to my rights and welfare as an artist, working independently in an ambiguous space that crosses borders and categories.

What centre do I speak to first? 

Which centre should be interrogated and dismantled first?

I am tired.

[tirednigerianartist]

[tirednigerianartist]

I am not in a great space. 

University work, family crises and my own anxieties have all become completely overwhelming. 

As of yesterday I have started anti-depressants to help with my anxiety. As part of a sort of self-care ‘routine’ I have started hiking or doing yoga 2 or 3 times a week. 

[tirednigerianartist]

Jimoh Isiaq, 20 wasn't even protesting.

 He was an onlooker.

fired on in Ogbomosho, South West, Nigeria last Sunday

images from Twitter and Nairaland

[tirednigerianartist]

In the years past, officers of the Special Anti Robbery Squad have abused, harassed, intimidated and killed countless numbers of innocent civilians. As these officers increasingly harass young Nigerians, youths in different parts of the country have called for the disbandment of the unit. What began as a social media campaign has led to widespread peaceful protest in different parts of the country. Here are some images of protesters in Abuja.

Image and words by Etinosa Yvonne 

[tirednigerianartist]

I run run run

thoughts rambling through my head, anger, only be stepping into motion I start to find some place and space

I run run run- two hours today- The thoughts flow a bit - I get so frustrated by the need too squeeze them into a conceptual framework- sequential, causal 

I am still fighting my embodiment in each language- I run to flee language- but I start thinking in English- my world is narrowing

I love this project- I love the thought of others out there - the urge to express the inner first thoughts as something anything- ‘thing-ing’-thing ing the lack of love  and by lacking it allowing some to enter in the void

[tirednigerianartist]

This was June. 

I  spent too much time on the surface, on the land and all my compartments began to crumble with the convergence of all my unresolved timelines.

I am not a land creature.

In June, I exchanged explanations for expletives

In June, I exchanged eloquent activism for trance like vicious activations

In July, I was dancing to get the devil out with a new digital alter ego, a mouth piece, in the form of Tired Nigerian Artist I had conjured like a rushed Frankenstein to mediate world events that I was receiving through my social media.

In September, I dove back into the ocean and was enjoying the small quiet things and remembering that there is an after. After we break ourselves into fractal digital rogue selves, we can come back and be whole in a different more digitally integrated way.