0:11:48
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Propeller
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Furl
Facebook
MySpace
Twitter
Google
Yahoo
Buzz Up!
LinkedIn
Technorati
Icerocket
Contributor:
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Babble On. | Login
Babble On. | Login
Artist, Prince Twins Seven Seven, of Nigeria speaks with IMA staff about his work Healing of Abiku Children. This African artist’s work combines traditional imagery with his own unique and contemporary style to create works of art that embody the rich lives and stories of African peoples.
We specifically get questions about some of the various iconography in the piece because there is so much interesting activity going on and one of the specific questions we get
is about the egg-shaped form in the foreground and what that represents.
Oh... that's good!
First of all, the concept of Abiku in Yoruba beliefs is the fact that they are children from another world entirely.
They are children that can come today in the morning and go in the evening. Like, I myself was believed to come as an Abiku child as twins seven times,
that's why my name is called Ibeji Meje Meje. Ibeji means Twins and Meje means Seven, Meje means Seven.
When I sell a painting because I felt it might be very hard for collectors, most especially international people like you, who are purchasing my work at that time to pronounce my name.
So I translate my name in Yoruba language into English. Ibeji Meje Meje to Twins Seven-Seven. Now back to the painting itself.
The painting, this is a mother of twins, and you notice Abiku who they are, they are like thousands of unseen children in the Garden of God.
The Universal God or Christian God or Islamic God. A God everybody prays to has these children.
But they are so powerful that when they come into the world, if they don't want to stay, you can't make them stay. Some family we even put mark, when a child die, they would put mark on their body
so that when they come back again the children would know them, among them because they're already marked. Now back to your question. This is the home of the herbalist, that is a priestess here.
Most especially in traditional way it is women who are always gifted to cure the Abiku children.
This egg is the ostrich egg. You know the ostrich? Because if they put any medicine in this kind of gog for Abiku child,
because the gog is from a tree in the bush the Abiku can go under that tree before the Babalawo or Priest go there.
Because this egg is a sacred egg, special egg, that Abiku don't want to touch, so anything they have inside it when they give it to an Abiku,
a woman who has been having an Abiku problem, when they drink the concoction from here when they birth the children they will not die again. That is the why you have this egg here.
This is an artistic imagination thing. This is supposed to be like a kind of letter, which was designed to use as a, to band
where the keg is open. The white concoction you see here is not palm wine, it is of some roots grounded, but they look whitish
because if it is not whitish, the children may not like to drink it because then to make them drink they have to hold their nose, because otherwise they will not drink.
Abiku will have water I say Abiku [speaking in Yoruba]. Abiku chose a very powerful doctor to a fake one, because if an Abiku want to go back
when they take them to the Babalawo house, the priest's house, if the unseen one, the one that stay over there while this man's house before the child is brought over
if he was fainting. You know, an Abiku child can faint twenty times a day, in what you call...you have a name for it here when a child...[seizure]. Yes.
Sometimes here you use this, you got something to sniff. But an Abiku child, if you put twenty of those on him, or her, she has to go, she will go.
[Artistic license]. Yes yes.
Another thing that comes out of our discussions is that so many people are gathered in this ceremony, in this healing. It it a communal event?
Yeah, let me tell you. It's when these Abiku children, when these people perform their miracle work, those that have had their children are grown up,
they make a pledge. So, these people are bringing offerings, they are bringing gifts. See, this one is bringing fire wood so that the priest will have something to burn the things with grinded and burn
for the Abiku children. This one is bringing a basketfull of whitish timber using it as a sign of contribution
and in this place is one of the helpers giving other medicine to other new ones that come in. Okay?
And this lady here is the mother of the twins that has been healed, and she sit very proudly, which is like a sign board for other people to come.
This lady has been losing so many children, she was ill and she is lucky that her children are no longer dying, so everybody rush there, because there are so many priests that can do this,
but some of them, want you to end dying them in a little hospital. Nobody goes there...a shrine, they call it a shrine, not a hospital when they bring children to them and children die, the other people will go to where they can get healing.
So, these are people bringing offerings, signs of thanks. You see this one has got a big pot here, that's supposed to be oil. So, you see this one carrying something, so everybody was coming.
But all these people here are people who line up after her. It's like here when you say first come first serve. And you will see here there are two twins there. They put down on the mat whom they are praying for.
Are those dead?
No, they are not dead, but they are faint...
they are fainted and
they will get them back. They get them back to life again. And you know the Yoruba people are the most twins bearing in life in the whole Africa,
So, that's why a lot of twins have to be brought here. And this gentleman who has been healed but is afraid to come up to drink, that's why he's hiding.
Yeah, he's hiding because the thing they give them to drink is not sweet like milk.
There is another figure that is kind of off and separate from the rest of the group, the small figure on the far left.
Yeah, that's like, you know sometimes some people can nosey. Nosey, a nosey person. He's trying to find...
he's not part of what is happening here, he is just trying to peek inside to see what is going on and he will be the one to go and announce if anything happens negatively,
to say, "the son of 'so and so' person as died in the shrine, somebody has been healed." He say, like these people will call [???] and you call it "busy-body," you know?
Whatever he sees here he go out to say it probably he will add more. If it is negative, he will make it look like it is terrible, and if it is possible, I mean positive,
he make it look like, "Oh my God it's miracle," just like that. Then everybody will start shouting, "Oh 'so and so' person children of 'so and so' person have died in the temple."
Do you see this as partially an indoor scene?
No, no it's an outdoor, outdoor.
This is in the house where this man live and...yes more people have to come in
more people inside, but what they are doing here has to be like in the veranda in front of the house, and this is an area for people to come in,
it's like a house. Here people come, people come here but he has to attend to people outside because he got so many people he cannot fit inside.
Any other iconographical questions that we have?
Well the eyes, in the discussions that come out, the eyes of so many of the figures seem downcast.
That is my trademark. See, I've got a lot of young artists who try to imitate, copy, my work. The only one way to see my painting is that's my symbol. That's the symbol of mine...
that's the symbol. All my paintings have that kind of eye. I don't do direct eyelids because I don't want it to look too realistic.
So, you would say this is an happy painting? It's a good painting?
It's a good painting, which is about good things, positive things. You can even see here, they are giving a bath to a baby here. Three children are being given a bath here.
Sometimes some Abiku children need just a bath, special bath. Some, they need to give them some medicine to remove disease from their body.
One of the questions we've had is, we have used this piece to talk with medical students about healing and all those different aspects,
and I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on art as a healing element. Can art heal? How does art heal?
Art heals. I could remember my painting, true. I was telling him just now, sometimes if you have a restless child, a very very restless child. And instead of taking him to counsel or psychiatric home,
thinking something is wrong with him give him piece of paper to do drawings. It will relax him. Art can heal.
plz i want the main idea of this poem i have an exam on thursday and i'm still confused thnk you
Post new comment