The Place of Traditional Artists in the Preservation of Nigerian Art

Author(s):  
Victoria N Osuagwu

Human beings have always left signs of their activities behind them. These signs take both tangible and intangible forms, including buildings, sites, sculptural works, antiquities, rock art paintings, belief systems, and traditions. The people of this millennium have recognized the remains of our fore-bears namely archaeological, architectural monuments, sites, and cultural works as an integral part of the cultural heritage of all humanity. They also recognized the fact that heritage is an invaluable source of information about the lives and activities of human beings and their artistic and technical capabilities over the centuries. The Nigerian Ancient Art Tradition which spans eight thousand years is a product of diverse artists from Dufuna, Nok, Igbo-Ukwu, Ife, Owo, Benin, Tada, etc. Also remarkable are the sculptural works created by late Susanne Wenger (an Austrian) and her New Sacred Art Movement in Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, which gave meaning to open spaces within the grove. This paper examines the role played by these artworks to project Nigeria to the global art world. The benefits to Nigeria and the global art traditions and recommendations on how to revive this dwindling economic resource will also be examined. The approach used was to study the artworks produced by some of these artists. Some of the findings were that the works were carefully done with suitable materials that have withstood climate change.

Author(s):  
Anne Ring Petersen

This book addresses a topic of increasing importance to artists, art historians and scholars of cultural studies, migration studies and international relations: migration as a profoundly world-transforming force that has remodelled artistic and art institutional practices across the world. It explores contemporary art’s entanglement and critical engagement with migration and globalisation as a key source to improving our understanding of how these processes transform identities, cultures, institutions and geopolitics. Focusing on the interrelations between transcultural identities, the paradoxes of globalisation and the experience of migration as structured by both mobility and settlement, longing and belonging, identification and disidentification, it contributes knowledge about three interwoven issues of enduring interest. Firstly, it is concerned with identity and belonging because migration challenges the identities of the people who migrate but also of the communities where migrants settle. The second set of issues revolves around visibility and recognition. Which impact does increased mobility have on the art world and the careers and works of artists? How have the discursive, structural and artistic changes paved the way for the idea of ‘global art’ and a growing institutional visibility and recognition of artists with a migrant background? Thirdly, the book is concerned with the question of the interrelations between aesthetics and politics and how aesthetics, politics and ethics may be balanced in artistic representations of migration, especially forced migration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
O. Olasupo Thompson ◽  
S. Abiodun Afolabi ◽  
Onyekwere George Felix Nwaorgu ◽  
Rebecca Remi Aduradola

Burial of human beings in houses or within residential premises is a common occurrence in developing countries. Despite the negative impacts it has on the social and economic lives of the people and society at large, particularly on public health, this norm has continued. However, this area has not been given adequate attention in recent scholarship. Against this backdrop, this article traces the development, appropriation, and misappropriation of burial sites and public cemeteries among the indigenous people of Egba land. It also examines the responses of the government to this phenomenon. This study was done through the use of archival sources, extant literature, media reports, pictographs, and interviews. The study reveals that the misappropriation of burial sites and cemeteries is a result of indigenous belief systems, illiteracy, inadequate lands for burial and cemeteries, cost and proximity of burial sites, and insecurity, among other things. It also finds that the few who appropriate burial sites and cemeteries were educated, enlightened, and averagely wealthy individuals, socially placed individuals. It recommends that governments at both state and local levels, particularly local levels that are vested with the maintenance of burial sites and cemeteries, should be strengthened to adequately appropriate cemeteries and burial sites in Egba land, south west Nigeria, like most indigenous people.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-68
Author(s):  
Laxmi Joshi Shrestha ◽  
Mohan Devkota ◽  
Bhuvan Keshar Sharma

 The study was conducted in two sacred groves of Kathmandu Valley, Pashupati Sacred Grove, and Bajrabarahi Sacred Grove, aiming to analyze the diversity of tree species and their role in conserving biodiversity. Parallel transects with concentric circular plot survey methods were applied for data collection. During the study, 23 tree species belonging to 22 genera and 15 families were recorded in Pashupati sacred grove, whereas only 19 tree species belonging to 16 genera and 13 families were recorded from Bajrabarahi Sacred Grove. The Shannon-Weiner diversity indices were higher (H=1.91) in Pashupati Sacred Grove compared to Bajrabarahi Sacred Grove, with 1.80 Shanon-Weiner Indices. Three types of forest were recorded from Pashupati Sacred Grove, namely the Schima-Pyrus forest, Myrsine-Persea forest, and Quercus-Myrsine forest, and only one Neolitsiacuipala forest from Bajrabarahi Sacred Grove. The sacred grove is one of the pioneers and community-based management regimes of the forest resource management system. It plays a decisive role in biodiversity conservation as it associated with many taboos and belief systems, thus providing a better opportunity for conservation compared to that of the government management system.


Author(s):  
حسن بن إبراهيم الهنداوي (Hassan Hendawi)

الملخّصإنّ الفقر والإملاق من المشكلات الرئيسة التي يواجهها العالم اليوم، ومن أسبابها ندرة الموارد الاقتصادية الشديدة وندرة الغذاء والماء. فندرة الموارد وقلتها كانت ذات أثر مباشر في قتل الملايين من الأنفس البشريّة. وتعدّ ندرة الموارد عند الاقتصاديين الخطر الأساس الذي يهدد الوجود البشري في هذا العصر. ويعتبرها الاقتصاديّون كذلك معضلة اقتصادية ناتجة عن رغبات الإنسان غير المتناهية مقابل موارد محدودة ومتناهية. ومن الأمور التي يقترحها الاقتصاديون من اجل التغلب على هذه المشكلة أن النّاسن ينبغي عليهم أن يختاروا الموارد الضرورية والحاجية لتلبية رغباتهم. فمفهوم الندرة من منظور الاقتصاد التقليدي يعني موارد محدودة في العالم مقابل حاجات ورغبات غير محدودة. وسبب ذلك عند الاقتصاديين أن الطبيعة لا توفر موارد كافية لتلبية حاجات الناس ورغباتهم غير المتناهية. ونظرة الإسلام التي يمثلها القرآن الكريم والسنة النبوية الشريفة لمسألة الندرة نظرة مختلفة تماما عن نظرة الاقتصاد التقليدي. ويعنى هذا البحث ببيان أن الندرة ليست مشكلة الطبيعة التس سخّرها الله تعالى للإنسان،  ولكن المشكلة في أخلاقيات الناس وتصرفاتهم في الموارد الطبيعية وطريقتهم في الانتفاع بها التي أدت إلى إدخال الضرر والفساد على الموارد الموجودة.الكلمات المفتاحية: الإسلام، ندرة الموارد، الاقتصاد المعاصر، الموارد الطبيعية، الطبيعة. **************************************               AbstractAmong the main problems that the world is facing today are poverty and destitution caused by severe scarcity of economic resources and the scarcity of food and water. The lack of resources has already caused the death of millions of human beings. The scarcity of resources is counted by economists as the primary danger that threatens the human existence. Economists also consider it an economic dilemma caused by infinite human desires against limited and finite resources. In order to overcome this problem among the suggestions made by economists is that human beings should choose only necessary resources to satisfy their desires. The conventional concept of scarcity is that the resources in the world are limited vis-à-vis the unlimited human needs and desires. The reason for that according to economists is that the nature does not provide sufficient resources to meet people’s endless needs and desires. Islamic approach as represented by the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah to the issue of scarcity is essentially different from the conventional viewpoint of economists. This paper proposes and explains that the problem is not in the nature which Allah has made subservient to man, but it is in the ethics of the people and their behaviour and way of utilization of natural resources, which ultimately damage and corrupt the available resources.Keywords: Islam, Scarcity of Resources, Modern Economy, Environmental Resources, Nature.


Author(s):  
_______ Archana ◽  
Charu Datta ◽  
Pratibha Tiwari

Degradation of environment is one of the most serious challenges before the mankind in today’s world. Mankind has been facing a wide range of problem arising out of the degradation of environment. Not only the areas under human inhabitation, but the areas of the planet without human population have also been suffering from these problems. As the population increase day by day, the amenities are not improved simultaneously. With the advancement of science and technologies the needs of human beings has been changing rapidly. As a result different types of environmental problems have been rising. Environmental degradation is a wide- reaching problem and it is likely to influence the health of human population is great. It may be defined the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water, and soil. The destruction of ecosystem and extinction of wildlife. Environmental degradation has occurred due to the recent activities in the field of socio-economic, institute and technology. Poverty still remains a problem as the root of several environmental problems to create awareness among the people about the ill effect of environmental pollution. In the whole research it is clear that all factors of environmental degradation may be reduced through- Framing the new laws on environmental degradation, Environment friend policy, Controlling all the ways and means of noise, air, soil and water pollution, Through growing more and more trees and by adapting the proper sanitation policy.  


Author(s):  
Andrea Harris

The introduction presents the core historiographical problem that Making BalletAmerican aims to correct: the idea that George Balanchine’s neoclassical choreography represents the first successful manifestation of an “American” ballet. While this idea is pervasive in dance history, little scholarly attention has been paid to its construction. The introduction brings to light an alternative, more complex historical context for American neoclassical ballet than has been previously considered. It places Lincoln Kirstein’s 1933 trip to Paris, famous for bringing Balanchine to the United States, within a transnational and interdisciplinary backdrop of modernism, during a time when the global art world was shifting significantly in response to the international rise of fascism. This context reverberates throughout to the book’s examination of American ballet as a form that was embedded in and responsive to a changing set of social, cultural, and political conditions over the period covered, 1933–1963.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Ciotti

AbstractThis article employs artifacts from the KMB’s “material culture” as a lens into this institution’s branding process and, within it, its interaction with the Venice Biennale. It analyzes larger questions about the career of the biennale cultural form as it re-territorializes in a new location that is added to the art world map “in progress.” Historically, geographical location has been crucial for many biennales in the Global South to articulate their origin, identity, and claims vis-à-vis the global art world. Moreover, biennale proliferation especially in the South has produced cartographic re-imaginings aiming to destabilize the “center-periphery” configuration of the art world map. The article shows that the KMB does not reiterate ideological standings put forward by Southern biennales but crafts its positionality on different grounds. These entail simultaneously anchoring the KMB to histories of circulation in and out of South India tracing back at least two millennia and strategically weaving a relation with the archetypical Venice Biennale in the present.


Multilingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen ◽  
Francisco Apurinã ◽  
Sidney Facundes

Abstract This article looks at what origin stories teach about the world and what kind of material presence they have in Southwestern Amazonia. We examine the ways the Apurinã relate to certain nonhuman entities through their origin story, and our theoretical approach is language materiality, as we are interested in material means of mediating traditional stories. Analogous to the ways that speakers of many other languages who distinguish the entities that they talk to or about, the Apurinã make use of linguistic resources to establish the ways they interact with different entities. Besides these resources, the material means of mediating stories is a crucial tool to narrate the worlds of humans and nonhumans. Storytelling requires material mediation, and a specific context of plant substances. It also involves community meeting as a space of trust in order to become a communicative practice and effectively introduce the history of the people. Our sources are ethnography, language documentation, and autoethnography.


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