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7th Clark Bursary

The Wisdom of Food

by Nii Obodai

Films | Journal | Proposal | About Nii

Posted Sat 7 April 07

Week One

Before coming to Bristol for the residency, I didn’t really have, or tried not to build up any expectations at first. As the days went by I started to talk to people in Ghana about Bristol and began to have a Bristol experience through their memories - people who had lived here or been to university. It was very superficial things - nice place, clean, with funny street names like Black Boy Hill and White Ladies Road. I didn’t really know Bristol in the context of slavery, there was an ignorance on that level. But prior to the Watershed meeting, I never thought about Bristol, it wasn’t really until I got here I realised its history.

When Watershed approached me about what ideas I had for the residency, because I hadn’t been there, I wanted to conceptualise things that were related to me personally and that were connected with work that I had already started. I looked at ideas around my personal history of the years that I had spent in boarding school in the UK and some of the spiritual issues in my life - looking at landscape from a spiritual point of view.

One of the things that I decided when I came to Bristol was that I wasn’t going to discuss the weather with anyone, but as soon as I arrived I couldn’t get away with it. Everyone said – “you brought the good weather with you.” Arriving here I came to meet a really positive spirit in Bristol, engaging with people who I was going to work with and members of the Bristol community that I interacted with. On the first night we went out for food and it was great meeting everyone – Gill from Watershed who is managing the bursary, Helen Wilson, an artist who is mentoring me and Aikaterini, another artist who works at Watershed and is training me in digital video, and also John, the founding chair of Watershed, who is hosting me. John is a very enthusiastic, warm and generous man, I identified these qualities from early on.

In this first week, I went with Gill to the Georgian House and really, I went to seek Pero, as I had heard about Peros Bridge and his legacy. I found the experience at the house hollow and it really brought to mind the realisation of the presence of denial concerning Bristol and its slave trade legacy. Because the value of that house comes from the slave trade and the fact that the city celebrates their wealth but doesn’t deal with the issue in its entirety – the representation in the house was inadequate to me.

Posted Sat 14 April 07

Week Two

I had settled in during the first week thanks to John, and by week two I was ready to engage with artists and meet people to develop my experience of Bristol. I met with Eddie Chambers, a curator and archivist of African Caribbean culture in film, music and contemporary art. I spent the day with Helen in St Paul’s, being taken around and introduced to this area of Bristol, the community and facilities, and meeting artists such as Lawrence Hoo (a filmmaker and poet and social activist) who was on his way to breakfast, and Bandeli, an artist who works with photography and painting and has very powerful works that deal with the issues of Bristol and the slavery.

On a trip to Birmingham with Helen and Gill, we met Barbara Walker, a painter. Through this meeting I got a sense of the depth of her work that was very personal and social consciousness based, it was very powerful. From this experience in my second week, what happened was my ideals of myself as an artist changed dramatically - through engaging with artists that deal with issues that are extremely personal but at the same time speak about social injustice.

When I got to Bristol and started to engage with the history of Bristol I decided I wanted to create work that needed to be healing to the community not just to the African community but to the general community.

One of the great things about the residency at Watershed is the access to three cinemas and I can watch any number of films such as Manhattan and Midnight Movies. A really interesting experience was the Anime presentation of short movies which was an area of film that I didn’t have any knowledge of and though few people turned up to this screening I became very good friends with Sarah Green, a puppeteer and animation student in Bristol. I found the Anime screening very interesting, introducing me to another realm of filmmaking and photography - it is a space where my photography and filmmaking could really merge and come up with something interesting.

Posted Sat 20 April 07

Week Three

Monday was the opening of the Empire and Commonwealth exhibition Breaking the Chains. I had invitations to this but I, I think like many other people with origins from Africa, have issues about Empire and Commonwealth and as much as we are affected by it, I didn’t feel to crazy about giving it patronage. I later saw the exhibition and really wasn’t impressed by its output but then I guess in many ways the least said the better and lets move on…

In contrast I visited Liverpool, which also has deep-rooted history in the African slave trade and I felt there was a greater sense of appreciation that effort was made in recognising the legacy and heritage of slavery in England. I saw Ellen Gallagher’s show at Tate Liverpool, which was beautiful, intelligent work. An interpretation of the soulful journey of the middle passage and those that suffered.

For me the highlight of the week was an anticipated moment to meet up with John Akomfrah again, (who I had met in Ghana two weeks before coming to Bristol), at the opening of the Retrospective of the Black Audio Film Collective. The work is highly intelligent and very well thought of and really expresses the discipline the BAC had to tackle the issues from a creative point of view, and at the same time not lose focus of their purpose, sharing their inspiration with us as an audience. They really made me appreciate the use of film can be very creative and documentary at the same time. Too often the documentary is just a documentary, but here there’s the threading of art and current affairs, living in the same space, creating an experience. From that respect I am highly influenced by this, from my discussions with Trevor, John, and Gary, I became more confident in wanting to use digital film as a form of expression, an artform and as part of a healing work I want to do.

Posted Sat 27 April 07

Week Four

The beginning of week four was moving into my studio at Spike Island – which has a big sign on the front door that says ‘Ladies.’ Aikaterini was with me to train me on camera operating skills, video editing skills and discuss my project ideas. We had reservations about the space at first but this is part of the challenges in life - to turn undesirable instances in life into a positive experience. There are not many African artists at Spike, there is myself and Gloria F.Y. Ojulari Sule of Nigerian English heritage. Also people just go about their business there, so I felt a kind of ‘coolness’ around it, and it took a while to get used to it. I have got a laptop and have been spending a good amount of time on the Internet researching my project ideas and generally the laptop is becoming a great tool. It’s allowing me to explore new ways of being creative and pushing my creativity to a different level. I am beginning to appreciate the vast nature of the Internet and information technology. Previously I kind of just wasn’t too involved in the web, I had a very low profile attitude to it. Not that I am jumping all over it, but for specific tasks if you’ve got an idea, the web is a great place to explore information. It is phenomenal and the laptop is the perfect tool - the junction or interface between the human being and cyberspace.

During this week, myself, Helen, Lawrence and another artist I have been introduced to Graeme Mortimer went to Clevedon Court. This was the African slave trade experience we were confronting, looking at the wealth that was generated from it, exploring how it had become English heritage National Trust.

Each of us had a different reaction to being in the space, and personally I noticed there the main visitors were retired English people and I had a sense of worshipping the dead. It was sort of like a religious pilgrimage and in a sense I found it quite nauseating, because the truth of where some of that wealth came from is completely washed over. When we reconvened as a group outside the building we spent three hours discussing our experience and it allowed us to explore our individual emotional responses to the issues.

Posted Sat 4 May 07

Week Five

The scanner broke and we have been struggling to get the scanner working so I could get new works on the laptop that I wanted to explore for presentation purposes for the Speakeasy welcome event at the Pierian Centre. This presentation was an experience I’d never had - presenting my work outside of an exhibition space to general public and other artists so my nerves were high in preparing this. I spent two nights up, putting together 150 images to present a slide show of work and a short movie I had created from footage I have on bats from a small project I started in Ghana documenting bats in the city (Accra).

The Speakeasy was a wonderful experience. As we were waiting to set up, I met another artist presenting - Ishmahil from Rice and Peas and we recognised each other from years back as he was somebody I knew from Ghana. I also met Breathing Fire, a group of Bristol women who are a wonderful performance group and I felt they carried the evening. Lawrence read his poetry and I was introduced to Kozhy, a young Bristol poet who also presented. I think my presentation went ok, I put on my slides and left the room. I felt it was about the work and not about me, as I was already much of the focus and I felt I needed to allow the work to live its life. Afterwards when we finished the presentation, performances and reading it was then that I engaged with the visitors and talked about art and many people were interested in my philosophy and about the work.

Posted Sat 11 May 07

Week Six

Helen and I went to Wales to Tiger Bay and met Cal and David, and over lunch we had discussions on photography and art and what’s going on in Wales and the Cardiff art scene. They were wonderful people and together the four of us went to Butetown History & Arts Centre and met with Glen Jordan the curator. He is an African American living in Wales with great knowledge of the community, a really hearty personality, an artist in his own right and a professor. I had a really wonderful and productive meeting with him and we exchanged our published books and he was very encouraging about me presenting work in the centre. It was also an experience that helped me become clear about the work I’m doing in Bristol and ideas about health and community.

This week I also went to London to meet Karen Alexander, a freelance curator, who had set up two days of intense meetings including with Autograph, Iniva , VET and onedotzero. I was particularly excited to meet Autograph as I respect the work they do and the choice of artists that they work with and so it was a really encouraging, the enthusiasm from David and Mark in response to my photographs.

We also visited the V&A to see Uncomfortable Truths, an exhibition which was really strong, more so through walking through it with Karen’s knowledge of the artists, the museum, and the history of the African slave trade. It was interesting to be in an exhibition with a different take and way of display, some of the works set within the traditional museum pieces were really powerful.

Posted Sat 11 May 07

Week Seven

I feel that time is running very fast and the theme for the film still swimming out there in the ether. Not able to anchor it. Yet all seems so calm and quiet on the outside and if only the truth be told… I do realise though that its going to be about food and it’s effect and relationship with humanity. (My life has been profoundly affected by having to learn how to use food to heal myself from a pretty serious health situation). I’ve decided to start recording people relating to their experiences and culture concerning food, building portraits of them on video film. I guess this is the best way to start. Merging my photographic self into this construction. I’m very clear in my head that I want to creating new textures, reaching into those in-between spaces. Try and step away from the past and feel for new things. I’m still not sure where exactly its going to take me so I’m going to follow the repeating message: just get the material and it will come to you. It’s easy to say. I’ve started listing questions relating to food. I’m sure that I’ll be producing a documentary of sorts, the big question: “about what ”?

I call up a couple of friends to talk about the idea and get a very enthusiastic response to it. It seems that when I bring up the subject of food and healing, people have lots to say. I’ve arranged to interview them to start and to get me used to working with the video camera. Even though the first two interviews are with friends, I’m quite nervous. I worry about the questions if they lead anywhere.

I’ve started learning how to design the soundtrack. I have an idea in my head and spend the weekend in London with my friend Kwame “Prof” Acheampong who guides me in how to use sound editing programs. http://www.afroganic.com

Work-in-progress stills:

Posted Sat 25 May 07

Week Eight

This week, I’m with Aikaterini. We are back at Spike reviewing my progress and laptop screening of some dvd films that she recommends. I watch. This weekend is the Bristol Vegan Fayre. I’m frustrated that I still haven’t realised how this film is going to look. I push myself to visit the festival find people to interact with hoping that the great truth will come to me. It’s not till Sunday afternoon sitting in a converted double decker bus café, with John Akayzar, my friend, lamenting my situation when John says quite simply; just start to collect stories that will inspire. That was it. I had to start with inspiration. That made sense. It’s like I can see clearly again. Out of the fog. Shifting into the vortex of hemptitude. Soul survival. I’m not here but will not leave. Passing through gates of cosmic deepa. Deepa being a conceptual measure of electromagnetic thought wave form. How am I going to reach in to my own head and be simply real. That’s what this film is all about. Transitions into the effects of a wild goose chase. I can’t wait to see again. First waking thoughts are always of you. And still you don’t know who, is. Maybe who is me, a lesson in WHAT. Sketches of momentary sanity as Helen places me in the ripple effects of Maria, creative painter. We shift time by exploring our stored and unchangeable memories, relating to our un-rehearsed journey in this 3 dimensional matter place. But aren’t we looking to be cosmic explorers freed of weight and imposed societal straight jackets. Sometimes I’m able to travel into the core idea of the film and get closer, feeling revelation. Back home, Omanza Shaw and I spend moments that he has termed T-segs. His redefinition of time structure. Maybe its time to realize Omanza’s Theory of There Are No Days. How do we recreate our world in to place free of injustice, on all levels. We seem to keep going into my experience of healing with food and how my mind was affected.

How can we say that we are creating true progress when this very tool of communication, ms WORD, that I’m finger dancing on won’t allow me to compose my own sequence of steps and moves. But it wants to tell me how to spell everything. If I make mistakes then I can choose to redirect the journey. I believe this is the way of freedom. bring to life the fun in new thruuhghghghgh. Why have we allowed ourselves to be so controlled to think that freedom is dangerous. WHAT HAPPENED TO US. Aikaterini and I explore art theory sampling works that have inspired her.

The Vegan festival is vibrant. Generating a feeling of harmony. I meet fellow travellers. The great thing for me was finding people who were on the raw food path. It’s these voices I’m looking for. I take John’s advise and just get in tune with their inspiration. I meet Jamie and Sue and their two children. They have established a 100% carbon free website hosting business http://www.ecologicalhosting.com by using renewable energy. I want to interview these guys. Their effect on the food system. Definitely a path to follow. Light.

Posted Wed 31 Jan 07

Sleep Pods and Time for Testing

We did a sound test at the watershed with sound absorbant foam to design the sleep pods/booths. Decided not to use perspex domes as it would cost alot and they’d be difficult to store. Came up with a design using MDF that flatpacks, easy to make, easy to store and is cheap. They work and you feel like you’re in a den once inside. The only problem is they look a bit like a bread bin!!

Sleep mask fitted with electronics. Something really nice about sewing electronics into material. They make the wearer look a bit like a cyborg which is fun. The sleep mask contains an Infra Red transmitter and receiver to track your eye movements when you’re in dreaming REM (rapid eye movement)state. The idea is the sounds, eg a steamtrain, will play during REM and will be incorporated into the participants dream space. The prototype is ready for testing, so I’ll let u know what happens!

Posted Sat 1 June 07

Week Nine

Now that I’ve made some potentially interesting contacts from the vegan fayre I see light in the tunnel. I have interview dates set up and enthusiastic people to work with wanting to tell their stories. I’m feeling up beat.

I start interviews and realise the potential of the work ahead and also the effort that needs to go into it. A part of me thinks that I could do with a camera operator but realise that I need to learn this of aspect digital video craft since I won’t be able to afford a professional for now. It does seem though that the images would be different if worked on directing things. I expect to document some of the future stories from different places around the world. Maybe not affordable. I’ll figure it when I get there.

I have a meeting with William Pym who represents Clarks. He’s come to meet me for the first time and see how the bursary is doing. I was bit nervous but relax as we get talking, him asking a lot of questions and me actually enjoying the process as it allows me to explore the ideas of the film through my responses. William is himself an artist and I think that makes it a lot easier. I’m encouraged by his comments after he reviews some of the work.

I spend the weekend in London chasing interviews.

Stills from interviews:

Posted Fri 4 Aug 07

Audio

Listen to Nii discussing the Bursary and his work:

Click here for audio

Posted Fri 4 Aug 07

'The Wisdom of Food' - event documentation and short film

Below is documentation of a presentation and panel discussion event which took place at Watershed on Fri 17 August.

The film shows Nii talking about his work and his experience of Bristol, in conversation with Bristol-based artist Helen Wilson and Akaterini Gegisian who both provided support and mentoring during his residency.

Click here to watch the presentation event. (films require Real Player or Quicktime).

Click here to watch Nii's short film.