INxSANIXTY

What items did you choose and why?

I chose a paper and tape sculpture of a small horse. I chose it partly because of my art practice, as it represents a lot of things. Culturally as well, the horse is what the Hausa/Fulani people use a lot in their traditional celebrations. It’s my dad's origin in Nigeria, but I chose it as well because of their culture: they're nomads by nature, they're travelers and they move; their home is who they are in a lot of ways. They carried it through different times and places as they sprinkled across Africa. It’s an interesting representation of home for me, being that as an artist I kind of keep the movement going and in a way, I kind of identify with world citizenship. It’s also directly linked to who, I guess, my people are. Even the Nigerian coat of arms has two horses that represent strength and unity or something along those lines, so the horse as a whole covers me. Of course, using paper itself again links to memories and creativity, so to me that encapsulates home the most.

What does home mean to you?

That's a loaded, good question and there's no simple answer. Home can mean what I feel is my home, but also where I consider my home or what I would consider home to me. I am trying to divide this into internally and outwardly: internally, home would be the people I care about the most and where my heart resides. People say that home is where the heart is and I think that's true, simply because growing up, I travelled a lot. I went to a boarding school, so maybe more than others, I learned to detach myself from places, but at the same time to also attach myself to places. Because I move a lot and quickly, when I move somewhere, I come whole and that's my space. I need to almost immediately attach myself to a place, but because I'm so used to having to leave those so-called places that I attach myself to, I end up growing to have different appreciations, so to speak... the appreciation of meeting people for instance: even though you don't see each other or talk every day and so there's a lesser level of relationship, those people will still form the fabric of what your identity is. Even when they're far away, they're still in a way part of you, so I guess those people also represent some sort of home. Just because of how I’ve lived, home to me actually more resides in people than places, because I’ve changed environments a lot. In a way it is not just the people themselves, it’s the people in a certain condition. For example, it’s not just because I’m related to somebody by blood that they automatically become home. Sure, people that are related by blood can be home. Also, people that I can remember being a significant part or my growth or my life would then become home, which might unfortunately exclude some people, but also include other people who may not be related to me by blood. The external (concept of home) is a little different, because as opposed to home in terms of where I’m from, it hasn’t got to do with people or places, but rather with a condition, a place that I can be comfortable or calm in. A good state of mind is, in a way, home.
For example, you know when you’re on holidays and you’re living your best life, at that particular moment? At some point you might go back to where you’re from and that feeling of going into your bed and where you consider to be yours. 

That level of comfort is home. It’s not in relation to anybody, but more  in relation to what you’re used to. It might not be great, but this is you, this is what you identify with, what you’ve built for yourself. It’s the ‘even if it’s a shithole, it's my shithole’ kind of energy, so I relate to that aspect of home too. Again, with the first association being based on people, it means that you now have to create ‘the place’ everywhere you go. The place that you create is not based on what you put in there, it's more the energy that it carries, the feeling you feel when you're in there, how comfortable you are, how much peace of mind you have. Basically, it wouldn't be home if you were still worried about paying your bills. It wouldn't be home if your neighbours hated you. It wouldn't be home if you had to interact in negative ways that obstruct that level of comfort. That's why I used the holiday example: you might love your holiday more than anything, but at some point, you need to go home. It's not just the roof over your head because if you're in an unstable condition, then I don't know if that's still home. Home would be both the people that make up your upbringing, that complete you and that you care about, who are part of your memory or the beauty of you, and the spaces that you create within whatever situation, where you are comfortable enough to be at peace.

Home is also adapting to everybody living in a world that happens outside of home. It is meant to kind of encapsulate where you consider it to be: you have to carry it with the same kind of energy that you have when you interact with everybody out in the real world. You almost never have a break, which means you almost don't have a home, it's like a revolving door.

What does home mean within the context of roots?

I was born in London, my mom’s Edo and my dad is Hausa/Fulani: two different cultures. One thing that has been consistent with me (not the “Oh, I never fit in as a child”, I mean, I could go on for days about it but it was never really that) was the reality that while I'm in London, I'm aware that I'm Nigerian but when I get to Nigeria, I'm aware that I'm from London. When I go to the south (of Nigeria), they remind me that my dad is from the north but when I go to the north, they tell me I'm from the south. You see how it relates to why, when I think of home, I almost identify it with the things that I carry with me, as opposed to a place where people can always change, but believe they own it more than you.
In a lot of ways, the identifying of who I am is not attached to anybody else more than me, so yeah, my dad is from this place and my mom is from that place, but my dad is not the same as me, because my dad is not from where my mom and my dad are from. Does that make sense? My mom is not the same as me because of where she's from, and my dad is from where he's from. That puts me in a position where none of them quite relate to the actual experience of being where I’m from, at least not to the same level. Being from London also creates a certain level of audacity and understanding of the world in a different way, but also loses some of the other things that my parents may love or admire from their perspective, which partly puts me out of place. When I'm back in London, I am not so grateful to be here because I'm from a great place, where I know what was done and I know what I've been able to tap into. I’m not one of those people that can be told certain things about black people. Unfortunately/fortunately, with the way we were raised in Nigeria, we don't think of ourselves as being the ones that are not smart. We don't have some of the complex issues that the world has unfortunately spread: if anything, we have a bit more audacity than the average. We somehow think that just because we are Nigerian, we are smarter than others and it's actually toxic to a level, but in a lot of ways there's a building block there that created even me. I can live all the way in London, have all these views and still nobody can take away my Nigerian-ness from me, my Hausa-ness from me or my Edo-ness from me.

I don't have to play anyone’s game because I didn't ask to be who I am: I was born who I am and there's a certain level of culture that already lives with me, how I do things and what I think of and what I admire. Every now and then, I do have little stereotypical things that I guess a Hausa person or Fulani person would have. The majority of my friends are from Nigeria in some way, because I grew up in the north, where there's a good amount of them that share the same culture with me and might speak the same language. That root exists within the context of where I’m from, although I always say I am from Peckham first, then I'm from Nigeria, then I'm from London, not because of anything with my Nigerian roots, but if you can go to a place where you can walk around the streets and they know you from different levels of your life and you can relate to many things and many aspects, it's probably here. Then it goes to Nigeria as a country as a whole, more than even specific parts of where I'm from and then it comes back to London before it goes to the UK.