My Art  Is Relaxing—Fayemi

Olusegun Fayemi's passion for photography and Africa is evident in his compelling collection of works titled Eloquent Narratives. He recently ended a three-week exhibition at Quintessence Gallery, Ikoyi-Lagos, where the ebullient artist gladly expounded on the frames and characters captured by his lens. In this interview with BOLA OGUNTOLA, Dr. Fayemi reveals his excitement about being an Africa-inspired photographer. Excerpts:

Has photography always been a part of you?
Yes, I have been taking photographs for more than 30 years so it's been there. Medicine and Art are two different lines; one has nothing to do with the other. I don't use Medicine in Art and I don't use Art in Medicine.
Why did you go into professional photography?
I have passion for photography. I am a self-taught photographer and I did all the work myself. I did the courses that I need to do when I needed them. When I knew I needed to do dark room work I took the course. Also there is a technical aspect to my work and there is a creative aspect. Technically, you can master the work over time after you must have had a basic knowledge of lighting and composition .Then the creative aspect is where you focus which could be nature or people photography. I decided to photograph Africa. Actually, Africans are the Caribbeans in Jamaica, Dominica and so on. I felt a lot needs to be shown and known about Africa. People need to be aware of the daily lives of Africans. I decided to showcase my photographic work from Nigeria and many other African countries which is basically documentary in nature. In this exhibition we have photographs from Senegal, Mali, South Africa, Ivory Coast, USA and Kenya.
The photographs are self-appointed assignments. I decided that I was going to photograph the Kenyan people for example and that I did.
What is your motivation?
It's because I want to see Africa from an African perspective. I want to document Africa because most of the documentations about Africa by foreigners are wrong. Usually they write what they want to write which may not be true so there is always something coloured about the truth and such has created an image of Africa that is negative in the world press. It is so bad that Africa is being presented as a wretched, miserable, poor and full of diseases. So the impression about Africa is that they are starving, suffering, begging for Aids from somewhere but I do know that the Africa that I knew wasn't like that. In a bid to correct these wrong impressions, I decided to travel to these countries to see for myself and take photographs. Basically, I go about taking photographs of people and not the geographical terrain. I am concerned about what the people are doing and what they look like because they are the ones the whites have misrepresented. I did all these for the past 25 years, going around taking pictures.
How challenging has it been doing this work?
It has been fruitful because I have been able to publish three books from my photographs and those books have really changed some minds. I have also given lectures in High Schools and Universities. Two of my books are based on children and the third one is based on women. The first book, Balancing Arts: Photographs from West Africa published in 1990, dwells on village and city life, children and celebrations in churches and mosques. When I say celebration, I don't mean deep native religion. I don't go into all those things like Ifa because there is a limit to which one can go. I understand my limit which is portraying contemporary African life even though the worship of Ifa is still part of that life but it is remote to what I want to show .What I want to show is how the people live their lives and how one defines whether that life is poor or diseased. So the idea is to show that African children do not necessarily need a toy shop for them to be happy that is children can climb trees, make their own toys and yet they are happy. My focus is different and the centre is on Africa. The second book is Voices from within: Photographs of African Children published in 1995. It shows on how children are nurtured, the sort of education they are exposed to, growing up, and so on. The pictures there were taken from 12 different countries in Africa. The third book is on Women titled Windows to the Soul: Photographs Celebrating African Women published in 1999 which is an expansion of the other books but focused on women. It illustrates the sort of work women do, the life they live, the market life which is a very important aspect of African woman's existence.
Art to me is not tedious. My art to me is relaxing. I am not a full time artist, I am a physician. For me, this is relaxing more than my work. I mean the works are professional, they are inspired and so they get sold.
What informed this theme for your exhibition?
The theme here is Africa and the title of the show is Eloquence because you see the different combination of colours that is used because they are telling a story. Every picture you look at tells a story and basically that is where the narratives comes from.
Finally, how would you describe Nigerian art?
The Nigerian art is potent, rewarding and very rich.
Art to me is not tedious. My art to me is relaxing. I am not a full time artist, I am a physician. For me, this is relaxing more than my work. I mean the works are professional, they are inspired and so they get sold.