Sven Christian [SC]: When did you start working in wood? 

Usen Obot [UO]: I worked as a gallerist for eight years1. When I decided to return to making art, I said, ‘Ok, let me get back into studio for a couple of years.’ Before, my works were mixed-media on canvas. On my return I wanted to do something different. I didn’t want to go back and do the same thing. I had been toying with the idea of sculpture, which goes back to my grandfather, who was a very meticulous carver of masks and a high priest of the Igbo society. 

Igbo society has its own governance, which fuses religion, administration, politics and everything into one. It’s structure existed for centuries before any European came to Africa, was based on familial structures. Every family has representation, and every male is an initiate. Then you have these segments; this heirarchy. 

All of the masks had functions. They’re made from a particular kind of wood, and they would use certain barks to stain them black; or any colour, but they were predominantly black. When I returned to the studio, I looked back. I have a son who was born here in South Africa. He lives here, and I had moved away from the tradition or religion of my grandfather. Firstly, I live here. Second was the advent of religious practices. I followed Christianity, so there’s a part of my culture, my history, that stops with me. Knowing what I know, looking at what has been shed — culturally, historically, morally — I look back at when I was little, when we would go to see my grandfather, and I realise that my children may not know anything about their history. This generational loss of cultural knowledge is quite common, even in South Africa. 

So, when I returned to the studio, I asked how I could reimage this practice that is so central, like the tenants or pillars that kept society functional. I applied for a residency at Rhodes University. When there, I was thinking, ‘So, how do I get these works to go on the wall?’ You can hang a mask on the wall, even though they used to be worn. That is where relief sculpture came in. Then came the realisation that I need to use lighter wood or to come up with a hanging system that can support the work. Nsibidi is a script developed by the Igbo society. It is one of the oldest forms of writing, of communication. As an Ekpe initiate you can read it. It may be instructional — ‘Go left; go right,’ whatever it is. I haven’t been able to replicate it, but I include incisions, these metaphorical representations of Nsibidi scripts. 

Along the way, I wanted to bring colour in, to bring it into the contemporary space, whereby you and I can hang them in our homes, whoever — non-initiates. You can’t touch anything that belongs to the Igbo society if you are not an initiate. There’s a sacred line, like when they have meetings: if you’re not an initiate you can’t step in there. You risk execution. I call my work Mpese. There’s no direct translation in English, but it’s something magical, unexplainable. That is how I began working with wood. But after my residency at Rhodes, I had a second exhibition at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth, which also included works in fibreglass and metal, experimenting with different materials. I’m not tied to wood. At NMMU, I also brought in Raffia, which plays a huge role in Igbo culture. You extract it from palm, and can weave it to make these large domes, to cover things or people, such as those who do these incantations and libations. When they wear it they become spirits, in a way, untouchable. You can’t talk to them. So raffia played a huge role. 

There are also other biodegradable materiasl: seeds or shells, that are used in dance to make sounds. They also use the trees to make the instruments. So everything was biodegradable, and often such materials ar combined. You have drums made from genuine animal leather. Sometimes the leather is attached to the mask; you stretch and pin it — they had a way to attach the leather to the mask or drum without nails. Now I have children who don’t even know. So, not only do I make work for my culture but for others to reimage their own, for the next generation. Because the originals, like those that my grandfather would make, are in museums in Germany or in the UK. We have to pay to go see them, if we are fortunate enough to afford it. 

SC: Xwalacktun was telling me something similar; about how his culture has undergone such processes of erasure. He also spoke about the practice of mask making, and how a mask gets activated through community; through story, song, and dance, which imbue the mask with meaning. Whoever is present at that ceremony can then tell others about the underlying story. So people attend and that’s how knowledge gets held within the community and passed down. But you were talking about the inscriptions in your work and it seems like there are varying degrees of knowledge or access. You either know or you don’t know. When I look at his work, for example, I don’t necessarily understand what the story is. I just know it’s there. You mentioned your inscriptions being metaphorical and I’m curious about whether there are people who could read them? 

UO: No. Once in a while I will bring the actual writing in, but it’s things that are easy for me to bring in; things that you can Google. A lot of this knowledge has been lost. If an Igbo initiate dies, there’s a certain procedure, depending on one’s position within the heirarchy. If you’re at an entry level, there are only certain ceremonies that you can attend, because you’re not initiated into the others. For you to get to chief priest, or even to be a village head, you have to go through a whole process. So each tenant has certain dynamics. If you are not an initiate you don’t know. There are certain secrets that they will not tell you. If they want you to know, they will initiate you. There are only a few things that I can bring forward in my work; things that are already accessible online. You might find a meaning behind a certain sign, for example, but the rest... Never. 

When we used to visit my grandfather, they would build him... I don’t know what to call it in English, but like a house or a shrine, on which we would write these things. I used to write, but we were little, so I don’t know what it was. Someone might make a sculpture to represent the person, and certain things are put in, even some of his belongings. It’s like a shrine, basically. So they put those things in, maybe instruments or whatever he liked, for some period of time. 

But like I said, when western culture takes its effect. A lot of this has washed away. If you go there now you won’t see what I’m talking about. Back in the day, if you went to the village where my grandfather lived, you might see three or four of these shrines, made just that morning, for a short ceremony that the elders or chiefs attend, and they do what they do and then take it apart. Every aspect of that society was meticulously structured, but that’s all disappeared. This is where my work comes in. It’s like a reenactment; you create this thing so that whoever watches can have an idea of what used to be, what it was like. I wish I could tell the story more deeply, but at least those who see it will have an idea, and hopefully those who come after will also be able to draw from that.

Remember, African history was oral. A lot of it has been lost in translation. Even if you had to tell somebody else what I’m telling you, certain things will be missing, not purposefully, but you know how it is. For me it’s a process of trying to document those things, whether visually or through text, so that you can go back and read about the Igbo. Google will give you a lot of material, but again, those things are not written by the practitioners. They were maybe written by somebody from afar. I haven’t read anything that describes what that sacred space looks like inside, because as an initiate, you’re not going to write about it. No initiate will tell you what used to happen there or what is actually there when you walk in, you see? If I was an initiate I’m not going to tell you, ‘This is what we did.’ You get what I’m trying to say? It was a system of secrecy, so the religious and spiritual aspect has disappeared. 

SC: You’ve spoken about this process of brokendown telephone; how information lands, who has or doesn’t have access... My understanding is that, wherever it’s practiced, relief work inevitably involves some aspect of storytelling. Sometimes it might be figurative, sometimes cryptic, sometimes it might employ forms or shapes or scripts that have particular connotations or meanings within particular communities... 

UO: You are right. For me, relief work relates quite strongly to storytelling, and the whole structure of family and community… Everything is sort of intertwined. The first works I made in the round were like that, too.