Washington Uba is a Documentary Photo-artist who has consigned himself to the lowest end of the Nigerian social fabric. In this interview with Sam Anokam, the Delta State-born artist, speaks about his passion for the downtrodden, his online art shop, among other issues.
Washington with the oldest living leprosy patient at Uzuakoli, Abia State
Could you tell us about your foray into the arts and your area of specialty?
I went into art via my activities as a charity worker and it happened in 2005, though I have always been an art lover and learnt to make few sketches at about the age of 12 even though my sketches were not better than that of Adolf Hitler. My passion for charity to galvanize more attention to the plight of the less fortunate and vulnerable ones in our midst actually activated the zeal to go into photography as medium to create a visual interaction/interface of less privilege brothers and sisters and the society. I have worked for charity for over 17 years now and I can tell the human interface between the able and the disable. In most cases, people give alms to the downtrodden/destitute without any iota of love or care due to the fact that there are different reasons for alms giving. It is in this vein that I said to myself, ‘document the destitute, those suffering with leprosy and their colonies etc. exhibit the works to raise money through the exhibition for them and consciously engage the public to their plight.’ I am into documentary photography both still and motion images (Multi media), I started first with sill image documentation and later added the motion angle to it because I found out that still images alone can no longer tell the story of the abandoned status of my subjects.
So far, how has the experience been?
The experience has been wonderful and fulfilling. You know in life everyone is created for a specific purpose because no two person has the same purpose in life because The Almighty creator does not duplicate the talent he gives to men. Why I said it has been wonderful is the fact that I have been able to use art through the medium of photography to create consciousness towards the plight of the vulnerable and less fortunate ones in the society, to raise fund for them and use my camera as an instrument of protest. I think my purpose in life is to assist those who cannot assist themselves and the path I found myself through my charity endeavors with the artistic approach is all I need for my spiritual growth in this earth life as a Yoga student.
I practice Karma Yoga, Karma Yoga is the Yoga of action. It is the path chosen primarily by those of an outgoing nature. It purifies the heart by teaching you to act selflessly, without thought of gain or reward, detaching yourself from the fruits of your actions and offering them up to God. You learn to sublimate the ego. I will tell you one of my greatest experiences and most memorable one, it is my opportunity to meet the oldest living leprosy sufferer in Nigerian leprosy colony in Uzuakoli, Abia State who was a member of Ikoli Harcourt Whyte Choir and she sang for me one of the tunes they sang back in the days with the music legend, Harcourt Whyte. She has been in the colony since its inception in 1934. As at the time I met her she has lived in the colony for 77 years. I am very grateful to the Almighty for that wonderful privilege.
You opened a studio, what is unique about it?
The studio is 360 Studio and everyone knows what 360 degrees means in science, therefore, with respect to art, every genre of visual art is represented in the studio because the studio is being established to function as an Art agency which is an aspect that is lacking in the Nigerian art industry. We only have artists and collectors. The studio equally has an online art shop called 360artshop (www.360artshop.com). It is the first online art shop solely dedicated for the marketing of art works of any medium. It is not a gallery, it is an online shop. I know most galleries in Nigeria have their website and could sell works through online purchase but mine is a dedicated online shop like I said earlier. What inspired this idea is to open new horizon for artists both in the urban and hinterlands. With regards to practitioners in the hinterlands, it is a channel to showcase their creativity to art lovers and collectors who cannot easily reach them due to their location, this is the channel to explore and benefit from. Art in most cases is being seen as not lucrative but this assumption is not true, it has come to be seen like that because things are not done the right way. There is no proper professional channel to market art works and create value for both the art piece and the artist. My focus is to use the studio and the online art shop as a channel for economic empowerment for artists to get value for their creativity even though we know that the love and appreciation of art works lies on a minimal percentage of humans globally.
What do you intend to achieve at the end of the day with your studio?
My dream is for the studio to become an institution of economic empowerment to young visual artists of all medium, ranging from photography, painting, ceramics, and sculptor etc. The road map to achieving this feat is by organizing lectures/seminar on the business angle to art, enlightening the artists on how to value their works, artistic concept development and assisting the artist in the areas of marketing. There is a common maxim that knowledge is power but I tend to differ a bit from that and I look at it from this point that knowledge applied is power, so 360 Studio will engage the artists in the application of the knowledge and by so doing, they become economically powerful through their creative prowess. I will want to point out one area that needs attention in our art industry; it is the issue of artistic ideology, what I mean by this is that every artist should have an identity. For example, artists should creatively devout their art to different angles of life like the environment, politics, activism/protest art, social, nature, documentary, sports, among others. With this, the artist will carve an identity for himself or herself. Let’s not behave like our politicians that their ideology is the movement of “Ghana Must Go’ Bags with the heaviest content of currency either in naira or dollar. This is what I mean by artistic concept development. Once you have identity, you automatically have value and that will definitely stand you out from the crowd.
Could you tell us about your passion and involvement in charity works?
My involvement with active charity works dates back to about 17 years ago while I was in the university. Then, we take care of destitutes and sick people in the hospitals by paying their bills as much as we can as students. I was a director of charity in a Catholic Church group called, Madonna Mercy Family International, in St. Joseph the Worker Chaplaincy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Anambra State. Upon graduation, I continued the charity activity in the wider society and founded my own Non-Governmental Organization in 2005 called, Charity Care Network Initiative which I registered in 2006 with the Corporate Affairs Commission. It was in the same 2005 that the charity activity took a different turn, where I introduced photography to it and used the photographic skill to reach out to a wider audience as well as raising fund and handouts for the destitute and paying of bills for poor sick patients in hospitals. This is being actualized through art exhibitions; the NGO has branches in Agbor, Port Harcourt, Lagos and Kano. Like I said earlier, my purpose in this earth, life, is to help those in the lower rung of the socio-economic ladder who cannot help themselves such as destitute, the extremely poor, those suffering from leprosy, among others.
What current project are you working on?
I am currently working on the documentation of African Religion -The Olokun, Ogun, Eziza, Shango, etc. It is a multi-media documentation, The purpose is for the practitioners to throw more light on its values and practice, and also clarify some age long misconceptions about the religious beliefs and practices handed down to us by our forefathers. Since the advent of Christianity and Islam, a lot has been misunderstood about our own African religious beliefs and cultural values as a people.
The post Why I Use My Camera As Instrument Of Protest -Uba appeared first on Daily Independent, Nigerian Newspaper.