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CORA’s long road to cultural landscaping, activitism

By Gregory Austin Nwakunor
05 June 2016   |   1:22 am
When CORA started its cultural landscaping, many did not know that it would attain such fame.

Lagos’ cultural landscape is one of Africa’s finest. Its history provides a fascinating tale for any culture-centric individual. The city hosts quite a number of museums and galleries and has something for every cultural traveller. It is a city like no other, in terms of art patronage. While the city’s music scene is internationally celebrated, its enthralling theatre landscape is worthy of note.

In the last 25 years, the Committee For Relevant Art, CORA, has been central to Lagos’ creative industry since its birth on June 2, 1991. To commemorate the event, the organisation’s directorate will today stage a special edition of the quarterly Art Stampede, which will focus mainly on reflecting on the past years of the organisation, and projecting into the future. The venue is Museum Gallery, Freedom Park, (old Colonial Prison Yard) on Hospital Road, by Broad Street, Lagos.

When CORA started its cultural landscaping, many did not know that it would attain such fame. Over the years, it has grown to include, creating the sort of interactions that lead to birth and sharpening of existing ideas. Some of the most forward looking initiatives in the country’s culture environment came out of CORA-organized talkshops, usually referenced as conversation(s).

Tracing the history of the culture group, the Programme Chair, Jahman Anikulapo, said, “the polity was in shambles. The economy tottered towards recession. Communities sank into distress. Country’s fortune was held hostage by ripples of the recently acquired economic affliction – the IMF-loan, which induced Austerity measures, belt-tightening and such coinages that streamed out of the rapacious minds of successive mindless military junta and their cohorts among the economic and political elite.”

He said, as a result of the general discontent and frustration with the failing fortune of the country, tension ruled the streets and trauma was enthroned in the psyche of the people.

Anikulapo continued, ‘the gangsters in power’­ ­­– colluding with their ‘bought’ intellectuals – turned their guns and bayonets against this class of covetous ‘dissidents’. “In such darkly-clouded atmosphere that reeked of psychological trauma and mental death; writers, actors, dancers, painters, bards, inventors and such in their class, faced limited options – ship out or speak up. Many indeed shipped out – trooping to the grave or the border. It was a season of many departures indeed. Those who decided to stay had no option but to speak up – but in what shape of verse would the present darkness be framed; in what colours would the deep despair in the national psyche be painted?”

For the culture activist and former editor of The Guardian on Sunday, because of the fear of engaging a rampaging military machine, many ‘Creatives’, who couldn’t ship out, lowered the bar of social consciousness in their works; watered down the flow of their social commentary.

“In such trying and testy season, emerged such strange creative afflictions as: ‘Literature without soul’; ‘Paintings without engagement’; ‘Songs without (meaningful) lyrics’, Drama without interrogation (of the social conditions), and Movies with suspect motives. On the loose was art without relevance and commitment to the extant socio-political and cultural experiences of the people. It was indeed the era of flat thinking and weak consciousness. This was the social circumstance that gave birth to the interventionist agency that is today known as CORA,” Anikulapo said.

The first stampede, which had as its theme: What Literature? X-rayed the quality of prose and poetry coming out of Nigeria. Writers tore one another’s works into shreds. Since then, the idea that Nigerian literature started and ended with Soyinka and Achebe started looking passé.

One of the most regarded stampedes was on the evolution of the Nigerian movie. CORA took the position that the home videos evolved from the TV soap operas (including the formats) and that the soap operas were coming from a tradition that started with The Village Headmaster, the first televised drama series.

Toyin Akinosho, the secretary general of CORA, said, at inception and for so many years, the organisation ensured, “there were three musts for the quarterly CORA Art stampede: a musical band, kegs of palmwine and groundnuts. We would often have an interlude after several hours of talking shop, dance for a full hour, and then return to the conversation, which could be anything from the quality of art criticism, the effectiveness of the Nigerian Gallery space, when is the Nigerian movie going to emerge? to ideas around the culture producer in the marketplace.”

He said, “venues were chosen sometimes to show their possibilities as performance spaces. In 1996, we had a stampede in honour of Ben Enwonwu, at the rooftop gardens of the National Theatre. We used that venue several times. We had a lot of argument about where to host the second quarterly art stampede in September 1991; the photographer Hakeem Shitta was furious when we decided we couldn’t stage it right at the busstop in Ojuelegba. When we ended up at Jazzville, he moaned the fact that we had given in to the Ajebutters, and have stripped the party of its status of rebellion against the status quo. Still we managed to use the event to make a point; sometime in the mid 90s, we took the stampede to Ayoota Arts Centre in Ajegunle, which we thought was doing the kind of “culture in the community” that CORA wanted to foster.”

From 1991, the culture group hosted 110 Stampedes. However, at a point, the frequency stopped and it became something that came sparingly. Akinosho has this to say on that: “The Art Stampede was once our only programme and we held it religiously every quarter. But then we started “expanding” into doing Monthly Highlife Party, producing Lagos the City Arts Guide, producing Artists’ Forum, and running the Book and Art Festival. That reduced the periodicity of the stampede. Take this year for example; we produced a cross generational conversation during Prof. Biodun Jeyifo’s 70th birthday. That’s an artists’ forum. We are essentially organising Benson Idonije’s 80th birthday programme of events.”

He added, “these two programmes are not seen in the light of ‘frequency of programming’. But they are important, even though they are not called Stampede. This year, by the wrap up of the event today, we’d have had two of our four stampedes for the year. In some years, we’d have three actual stampedes out of the four quarterly; that’s 75 per cent. There has never been a single year when we had less than two stampedes and even those years are extremely rare, perhaps two out of our 25 years of being. In the last four years for example, the March stampede has been part of the i-Rep Film Festival. Yearly, the November Stampede is the last event of the Lagos Book and Art Festival.”

According to the CORA scribe, “what the stampede has largely achieved was to sow ‘ideas in the air’. That’s one of the reasons CORA sees itself as a landscapist. Over time, we decided more that we should intervene in culture programming. If we wanted a robust culture scene, why can’t we inaugurate programmes? The Monthly Highlife Party, the Lagos: The City Arts Guide and the Lagos Book and Art Festival (which we insisted would not be a fair, but a book event with very high arts content) are some of the results of this thinking. The LABAF, for us, has been the best example of ‘sowing seeds’. Since it started in 1999, at the onset of our return to democracy, there have been several high quality book festivals that have purchased the franchise; in Port Harcourt, Rivers State; in Ake, Ogun State, in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State; in Awka, Anambra State. The only problem is we haven’t received payment for the franchise.”

Aside from Stampede, LABAF and Art House Forum, Akinosho said, “The Book Trek is high on the agenda this year: this idea that we should have authors engage with secondary school pupils and university students has always fascinated us. This year we have four universities, as well as six secondary schools, lined up for three authors. These authors will also read in Bookshops.

For him, CORA has met the expectation of the Arts community. “It’s not a destination, really. It’s a work in progress. We didn’t set out to fulfil expectations; we wanted to instigate, to advocate for the arts. We should be tempted to claim he credit for a lot of things happening today in the creative industries,” he insisted. “It has been all joy: no pain at all. We think that we should do more. Part of the joy is the growth of theatre performance, the evolution of Nigerian movie, the increasing diversity and complexities of exhibition making. One thing we are excited about is the growing number of culture events where “panel conversations” are part of the menu.”

What other programmes have been lined-up to celebrate the silver jubilee?

Tunde Olanipekun, a founding member, said, “just about the time the community of visual artists headed by CSA Akran (late) were planning to celebrate 10th year anniversary of Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA Lagos chapter), with the biggest art show after FESTAC ‘77, a group of young art enthusiasts and artists gathered in a little flat in somewhere in Festac Town. The group, comprising Toyin Akinosho (Secretary), Yomi Layinka (President), Tunde Olanipekun (Director of Organisation) and Jossey Ogbuanoh was also thinking of creating a platform where artists, artistes, culture technocrats can jaw jaw on how to move the Art industry forward in a relaxed fun-filled atmosphere.”

Olanipekun said, “I can vividly recall the very first Art Stampede. It was an informal conference of artists and culture enthusiasts which started at about 12.30pm and ran till sundown on June 2, 1991 in the quadrangle of a set of block of residential flats at ‘A’ close, 2nd Avenue, 22 Road of the Festac Town, Lagos. We had to screen the space with palm fronds. It was a robust gathering of artists/artistes in a battle with the theme: What Fiction? And it was to address the then emergent quality of Nigerian fiction.”

The session featured the critic Sesan Ajayi and magazine publisher MEE Ezekiel (both late); poet-journalist Afam Akeh; writer Sola Osofisan, filmmaker-journalist Murtala Sule as discussants. Richard Mofe-Damijo read poems. Ben Tomoloju, dramatist, culture activist (then Arts Editor, The Guardian), was there. Actor, ace comedian, Tunji Sotimirin, thrilled the crowd with his humour. Wura Fadaka led by the late Biddy Wright was on the bandstand. Other prominent in the gathering include, photographer-activist, Hakeem Shitta of the Arts Illustrated (of blessed memory); the actor, Edmund Enaibe (who was an arts reporter, was one of the rapporteurs then) and Anikulapo. The list also includes, the late Akran; painter Sola Ogunfuwa; admin manager of Festac News (a community newspaper founded by Akinosho), Femi Ipaye; school teacher, Kola Akinlua and several others.

This event launched the career of Kola Ogunkoya (aka Gbedu Master), who is now in the USA. He was then a young, but talented saxophonist still in Junior Secondary class at Iponri High School, Surulere. He played at the first Art Stampede, which brought him to limelight.

With the birth of the organisation, it set out to support collaboration and cultural diversity among the arts in what was, at the time, a fragmented market. Focusing initially on cultural education and debate, the programme has since diversified its reach, going to content development in response to the sector’s changing landscape.

In the past 25 years, it has invested millions in arts development, promotion, education and distribution within the country and beyond. It has also continued to support competitiveness and collaboration within the industry and industry players as well as supporting the richness of the country’s histories and cultures.

CORA has also been in collaboration with other organisations on a number of other projects including, the (now-rested) BobTv annual Film and TV Festival, Abuja; the Lagos Comic and Cartoon Carnival etc. And through collaborations with relevant collaborators, CORA staged the first hip hop Conference in 2010 following a debate stirred by Dr. Reuben Abati in his column, Crossroads.

And that’s not including the yearly Book Party as an interventionist project to ensure that the literary community and general public, at least, get an opportunity to engage with authors of books shortlisted for the yearly Nigeria Literature Prize, facilitated by the Nigeria Liquefied Gas company.

Of recent, the CORA resolved to extend its reach through networking with international organisations such as the pan-Africa network of artists and artists organisations, Arterial Network, the secretariat of which it currently ‘warehouses’ in the country.

The highpoint of its 25 years existence was in 2006, when the organization was presented with the Prince Claus Award for its Work in the area of Cultural Education and Debate. The organization got 25,000 euro in the process.

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