What has not been noticed before; On the African village and the secrets of modernity. Part I
by Minna Salami
Titus Agbara Give Us This Day (2018), oil on canvas, 60cm x 70cm
Not very long ago, I stumbled upon a painting by an artist named Titus Agbara. It depicted a village in Nigeria. The painting was picturesque; but I also found it provocative. It did not simply depict a vivid scene of village life, it also raised a critical discussion about how geography connects with revelation, imagination, and perception.
I looked at the features in the painting: the woman patiently walking along a road selling food items to passers-by; and further ahead at the man cycling at a languid pace; and even further ahead at the road meandering into the interior terrain. The painting provoked me to ask: What is this scene really about? What does this landscape reveal about the world?
It eventually became clear to me that, unexpectedly, the painting was about modernity. The wild vegetation, the woman’s imported clothes, and the abandoned sheds, all seemed so deeply in conversation with topics that shape modernity: environmentalism, globalisation, capitalism, to name a few.
Yet, it wasn’t the type of landscape that typically inspires dialectical engagement with modern society. If the art piece had anything to say about modernity, it was to do with what has not been noticed about modernity before. It was about the secrets of modernity.
To give further context, I came across Agbara’s painting around the same time that I was writing about the work of the 19th century English painter, Helen Allingham, for a separate project. In Allingham’s case, I was drawn to a painting titled “Gathering Firewood” where a woman walks along a narrow autumnal road in rural England with a stack of firewood under her left shoulder. Behind her two children apprehensively gaze as though frightened to disrupt her pensive mood. The woman is unaware of them, lost in a fantasy about a different type of life, or a different place, or a different time.
“Some human settlements are so embedded into our collective consciousness that they almost become archetypical.”
It occurred to me that the artworks corresponded with each other. Both foregrounded women carrying out work. Both women walked along a grassy, curvy road. Both promenaded unaffected by their surroundings. They also both contained peripheral characters, and they reflected the perspective of workers. Allingham’s paintings depict everyday life of workers in Victorian England, and Agbara’s art invokes, as he puts it on his Arts net page, “everyday happenstance”.
Above all, both paintings were set in villages. But what eventually would trouble my writerly mind were not the similarities between the two paintings but rather their differences. Juxtaposing the two artworks, I was reminded that in the shared stories we tell about the world, European settlements are narrated in the most favourable ways, whereas African settlements occupy the position of deprivation in the social imaginary.
Although Allingham typically painted scenes of villages such as Denham, Alderney Edge, and Hambleden, her sceneries are more likely to be described as depictions of “the countryside” or “idyllic towns” rather than villages. An African village, contrastingly, is hardly likely to be described as idyllic.
Helen Allingham Gathering Firewood (Date unknown).
PLACE AND STORY
Some human settlements are so embedded into our collective consciousness that they almost become archetypical. Consider for example some of the world’s megacities like Mumbai or Shanghai. Even if you have never been to one of them, you can probably picture such a place in your mind’s eye. You probably make mental associations with such a city too, for example, that it is exciting or bustling, fast-paced, and vibrant, and so on.
“From a sociopolitical perspective, it would not be “wrong” to associate African villages with impoverishment and underdevelopment. ”
Similarly, you may never have been to, say, a university town such as Oxford or New Haven but when you hear the expression “university town”, there’s a chance you’ll imagine a prestigious and traditional place like Oxford.
Sanket Shah (2020), title unknown
Now, when you hear the expression African village, you are unlikely to conjure any specific place. Nor are you likely to think that this form of human settlement possesses favourable qualities. Rather, if asked to picture an African village, probably most people will envisage a pastiche of images of underdevelopment, lacking infrastructure, and poverty.
From a sociopolitical perspective, it would not be “wrong” to associate African villages with impoverishment and underdevelopment. It is true that African villages are inhabited by disenfranchised and often neglected citizens. Approximately 50% of Africa’s population live in rural areas, and they in return constitute more than 80% of Africans living in extreme poverty. The African village is often a place in need.
But the African village is more than its wounds. It has realities which lie beyond the political. There are characteristics to the African village that can’t be measured by statistics; qualities that cannot be understood through objective studies of material reality; truths about the African village that are normative rather than empirical.
In short, the African village is not singlehandedly a political settlement. It is also a biophysical settlement consisting of river streams, forests, winding hills, palm oil, shea butter, cotton, gold, ginger, cocoa, and coffee. It is a sociocultural settlement with family compounds, trading places, spiritual spaces, resting places, gathering sites, rituals, and festivals.
Ben Seymour The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford University (2021)
“In short, the African village is not singlehandedly a political settlement. It is also a biophysical settlement consisting of river streams, forests, winding hills, palm oil, shea butter, cotton, gold, ginger, cocoa, and coffee.”
It’s a structural settlement of indigo plantations, textile production, farming lands, food stalls, iron casting and wood cutting. And it is a historical settlement shaped by colonisation and conquer of land as well as by ancestral chronicles of past eras. To create societies we want to inhabit in the future, we can’t only analyse African settlements politically. We also need to explore them as networks of biophysical, sociocultural, structural, and historical relevance. When we give language to that which can’t necessarily be quantified and measured; that is, to the qualitative experiences we have of ourselves as Africans, we deepen our awareness about Africa and its role in the world.
I did not embark on writing this essay to correct biases, however. Rather, I am writing it because I am perturbed that the metaphysical explorations of the African village, as those I have described above ultimately are, do not feature in the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves as Africans and as global citizens. The African village is not afforded complexity.
In her famous talk “The Danger of a Single Story” author Chimamanda Adichie puts forward the thesis that “the single story creates stereotypes.” With the African village as a source, my aim to point at a related danger, namely “The danger of a simple story”. The simple story does not only create stereotypes, it also creates archetypes. The story of the African village corresponds with the pattern of thought about Africans. Like people, a biophysical space can be “Other”.
The stories we tell about humanity are furthered by those we share about their geographical environment. Hegemonic narratives continue to shape not only the politics in the African continent but also the ideas and ideals that come to shape our political experiences.
Minna Salami
is a Nigerian, Finnish, and Swedish feminist author and social critic currently at The New Institute. Her research focuses on Black feminist theory, contemporary African thought, and the politics of knowledge production.