Peju Layiwola Quotes

If education should be salvaged in this country we cannot leave it to the government alone. There has to be an inclusion of the private sector.

The renowned artist Demas Nwoko has proven the unique link between art and architect in his impressive oeuvre of works. There is a huge potential for tourism using the arts. Universities can benefit immensely from increased revenue with the expertise that the visual art portends. Art students are trained not to be seekers of employment but employers of labour, and by the time they graduate, they have a good understanding of what art and entrepreneurship means. The Department of Creative Arts has helped transform the cultural life of the university by organizing amazing music and theatre performances and also changing the landscape with sculptures. There is more that can be achieved.

So we have these artifacts standing in our stead and showing that we had a very rich tradition that is enviable.

I can only speak of my own experience as a teacher who has worked in at least three universities in Nigeria. At the University of Lagos, I have only added my bricks to those of others who were there before me. Working with a team of committed staff as we have at Unilag has helped make changes to our art department. Also important is the support we get from committed friends within the art community.

But my teaching is not limited to university students. I have straddled different categories and classes of people within the society. I have taught pupils and secondary school students, illiterates, barbers, mechanics, tailors, petty traders and welders, masons who need rudimentary skills in the arts to earn a decent living at community based workshops. In both spaces, I have had great fulfilment.

As an artist and academic, I believe one’s work should impact the community. I have found an avenue for exploring this notion through the art based, not-for-profit platform known as the Women and Youth Art Foundation which I founded in 2004. The impetus for this began in Benin. As a young girl, I would tag along with my mother to several community based programmes and workshops organised by the then Bendel State government on poverty alleviation. Much later at Ibadan in 1995, I started a small women’s group comprising a few unemployed nursing mothers. We discussed how we could help ourselves by sharing skills amongst ourselves. So we shared tips on culinary skills, childcare and arts within the group. Much later this group grew into a more structured platform with a wider outreach, engaging youth, women and disadvantaged groups in various arts and crafts for the purpose of economic empowerment.

The decline in the intake of students into University art schools nationally, stems from the dearth of art teachers and adequate facilities in primary and Secondary schools. This invariably leads to improper art and ultimately excludes art from the curriculum at the foundational level. These teaching materials assist in filling this gap.

In a huge celebration of talents, pupils of the University Staff School joined in a celebration witnessed by the U.S. Ambassador, Terence McCulley. In continuation of our community engagement this year, we will focus on using agricultural materials for creative work and our target is to work with about 1,000 students from public secondary schools in Lagos State.

The University of Lagos administration has been very receptive to suggestions. My proposal for the establishment of an arts and crafts Centre funded by TETFund was given priority by the university management. This concept when accomplished will invariably bring together students of different departments to learn skills that interface with the arts and help with job creation after school.

This project, which included my mother’s participation, was a great collaboration between academically-trained artists and the guild of bronze casters. It was a multi-genre project comprising performance art, sculpture, site-specific paintings, photography, installation art and video art which was funded in part from the University of Lagos Central Research grant.

My lectures and engagement in the last two months have helped foster better understanding of art from a non-European background. It has also expanded my understanding of knowledge practices in the arts. Next year promises better opportunities. As a recipient of the Raw Residency at Rhodes University in South Africa, I will be involved with creating a new body of art works. I am excited about this residency because of its unique structure. I will be working with a writer who would engage my artistic production in a literary form, while I do my own work.

In terms of my career, I will focus more on my studio practice and consolidate on helping to build a stronger community of creative thinkers amongst the youth. To mark our 13th anniversary of community service a lot of free art workshops in tie-dye, silk-painting and ceramics were held at the Women and Youth Art Centre. I have a couple of international engagement. I have just concluded a prestigious artist residency in the Kunstsammlung Northrein Westfalen, the Museum of the State of North Rhine Westfalia, in Dusseldorf.

Nollywood is very well known and I think because of the acclaim it has beyond Nigeria; it has drawn a lot of attention, but there are a lot of other areas that are being ignored.

Students of art are so engrossed in practical work to the detriment of research. Art books no longer have the appeal they had. The Internet seems to have replaced books as students prefer to cut and paste information gathered from Wikipedia and dictionaries. Hardly do they have critical engagement with resources that would help them develop a language of their own. The craze to acquire degrees without the attendant rigour is overwhelming. The few students that excel by trying to beat these odds give us hope to remain in this profession.

My interest in art derived from the great influences that Benin art, culture, festivals and history presented growing up in the city. My mother also had a strong influence on me. I not only learnt art from her at home, she was also my art teacher at the Federal Government Girls’ College, Benin. My principal, Josephine Ifueko Omigie, was an art graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The cultural events organised by the school helped stimulate interest in arts and culture. We had an annual week-long competition on cultural activities that engaged every student in one creative activity or the other. I was also a member of the school choir and played the piano.