Expression is the point

for the love of Africa,

belief in its greatness

and pursuit of its potential.

“In this journey of embracing, believing and pursuing dreams and goals, exploring art was a necessary action.”

Often I wonder: who were we before we were told who to be?

It’s a difficult question to answer. We are always influenced by something, and those influences inevitably shape what we do and what we create. We live, we learn, we grow, we adapt, and all of that is part and parcel of our actions, reactions and productions.

We can try to work backwards and trace where we learned a lesson, why we think the way we do, and act in a certain manner. ‘Colonisation’ is often our default answer.

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

Perhaps more than we admit, or maybe less than we fear.

But what do we do with that? Do we strip away everything touched by colonialism?

But what do we do with that? Shall we then reject everything we can trace to that awful period? Can we entirely disregard it from our actions and productions?

Do we attempt to create from a place untouched, unbothered by colonialism? (And if you are curious about this, you should see Anthony Aboyami’s work on maps and measurements as he figures out what and how we would measure as Africans, who are untouched by colonialism.)

Try as we might to deconstruct narratives and ideals, it is impossible to completely extricate certain influences from our actions because we don’t even know the extent of them, where they begin or end. As I learnt recently, we inherit some of these emotions. Attachments to objects or places we’ve never seen, yet feel called to.

Think of Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic, where the ocean holds haunting memories of the transatlantic slave trade, where grief and loss lie beneath the surface.

Or Tiya Miles’ Ties That Bind, where descendants of enslaved people feel an emotional connection to lands and homes they’ve never visited as a result of ancestral memory and cultural survival.

However, extrication is not the point (at least for me as Amitia).

Expression, influenced by all of life’s experiences, is what matters.

Expressing truthfully and freely.

In this journey of embracing, believing and pursuing dreams and goals, exploring art was a necessary action.

Art allows us to express ourselves.

The things we can name and those we can’t.

The ideas that beg to be freed from the mind and into the physical space.

Some art must be known to comprehend. Others are purposefully vague and distraught, leaving the beholder to call it beautiful. Or not.

But when one creates, you get a glimpse into their soul.

You understand what matters and what doesn’t.

You understand the values that the painter holds and what they resist.

The art becomes a mirror, reflecting the artist's identity.

As you will see in this issue, this research also explores how art can be a mould, shaping unity across nations.

In embracing expression, we take a step closer to who we are. And moulding who we were meant to be.

Amitia