The Way of the Calabash: Part 2: Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji, Victor Ekpuk and Bruce Onobrakpeya
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
The Way of the Calabash
Part 2
Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji, Victor Ekpuk and Bruce Onobrakpeya
The Encounter in the Forest
Abstract
This piece of speculative fiction and art criticism navigates the liminal space
between Nigerian visual art and metaphysical journeying. The narrative develops The Way of the Calabash as a mythic-philosophical
journey into self-realization, drawing on a visual constellation of
contemporary Nigerian art, guided by symbolic figures of Wisdom and Mediation.
Through verbal maps of crimson spirals and radiant squares, the narrative weaves Nsibidi and Uli symbols into a journey of self-discovery, echoing the philosophy of Natural Synthesis actualized as the fusion of African cosmology, art, and philosophy across generations.
The attached collage—featuring Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji's calabash-bearing woman, a self-portrait, titled "Onye Kwe, Chi Ya Ekwe", ''My God Affirms When I Agree'', an image configured by Nsibidi motifs, Victor Ekpuk's Nsibidi inspired abstractions, and Bruce Onobrakpeya's ancestral presence—serves as visual anchor, pulsing with inscriptions that mirror the story's enigmatic pathways.
Drawing on visual vocabularies integrating these representatives of three
generations of Nigerian art, the story explores the calabash as a vessel for
potential, a map without coordinates, and a convergence point for art,
spirituality, and Igbo cosmology, translating symbolic artworks into verbal
landscapes of the inner journey.
Drawing from the artistic system Nsibidi and the philosophy of Natural
Synthesis, this piece frames creativity as both inheritance and initiation: a
straight line and a spiral, universal yet uniquely yours, under a sun unseen
but luminous. In this work, contemporary Nigerian art functions as a site where metaphysics,
identity, and perception converge in a dynamic process of becoming.
Part 1: "The Woman in the Forest: Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji's 'Onye Kwe, Chi Ya Ekwe' and Bruce Onobrakpeya's 'Akporode' "
( Linkedin, Exploring Indigenous Igbo Spirituality and Philosophy and its Arts blog, Facebook )
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
The Awakening: Initiate of the
Way of the Calabash
"You are now an initiate of the Way of the Calabash, heading towards a
destination unknown, a destination only you can reach '', the old man said.
I was puzzled. How does a person wake up from sleep to find themself on a
journey, a journey unplanned?
''You triggered something that summoned you here'', the old man continued, as
if hearing my thoughts or guessing my puzzlement.
''You now walk in the dimension between realities, neither purely physical nor
non-physical but intertwining'' his daughter clarified.
''Who are you people?'' I asked.
The Woman of the Calabash
The Guardians
''We are guardians of the pathways between dimensions, between possibilities,
between being and becoming'' she stated.
''We exist to guide people to fulfill their possibilities. That calabash I
passed to you represents a person's greatest potential.
We are known by different names by various people.
You may call my father 'Wisdom' and me 'a guide to wisdom' '', she concluded.
The Destination with No Name : A Map Made of Questions
''What is this place you say you are guiding me to?'' I responded, still
baffled.
''It has no name, but embodies all possibilities. The journey there is both a
straight line and a spiral, under a sun unseen but luminous, opening into
eternity'', the old man continued, leaving me still confused though vague
chinks of light began to enter into my mind as some of what he was saying
gradually began to make a strange kind of sense.
''The best we can offer you as you begin this journey are our words and maps of
the journey, but they are not maps as you understand them'' the woman
explained.
An image blossomed in my mind.
A multi-coloured spiral ending in a crimson question mark as its background
pulsed with countless enigmatic inscriptions.
The Matrix of Questions
''The only way you can successfully undergo this journey is to make yourself a
walking question mark. Everything you see or experience has something to teach
you. I can only guide you but you must find those meanings by yourself'', she
urged.
Another image rose to my mind's eye.
A sequence of nested squares converging upon a radiant center, dynamic against
a space alive with strange configurations.
The Unending Destination
''The path to your ultimate possibilities is universal, yet unique. The road
belongs to all yet is yours alone. The destination reverberates across time and
space but you return alone to your centre, intersecting with others but
uniquely yours'', she clarified.
Wow. Intriguing. Puzzling words describing a mysterious journey.
The Choice: One Foot in Front of the Other
I began to desire to experience the wonderful things being so compellingly
described.
''Lets continue then'' I answered.
The journey began.
One foot in front of the other, we moved on.
The Sun, Journey and Eternity
Artistic and Philosophical Context : The Convergence of Three Generations :
Three Flames, One Fire
This story is inspired by the convergence, for me, of Chiagoziem Nnaemeka
Orji's self portrait ''Onye Kwe, Chi Ya Ekwe'', the picture of the woman with a
calabash on her head in the collage, and the art of Victor Ekpuk, two Nigerians
deeply influenced by the intersecting cultures of Igboland, for Orji, and of
Efik and Ibibio, for Ekpuk, influences centred in the visual symbolism of Uli
and Nsibidi communication systems for Orji and
Nsibidi for Ekpuk.
This story reworks descriptions of Ekpuk's art in terms of verbal pictures of
the journey of knowledge and its destination, adapted from statements about the
Ekpuk artworks shown in the collage-the red spiral (Good Morning, Sunrise) and the concentric squares ( Sanctuary 2),
and my own interpretation of Ekpuk's spiral ending with a crimson topped
question mark ( Composition 2).
Orji's self portrait is centralized because it is the primary inspiration for
this narrative series.
The old man is inspired by Bruce Onobrakpeya, emerging from the presence of his
art in the first story in the series.The picture of the old man with a staff is composed of one I took of Onobrakpeya at his house with a ChatGPT generated image of a tree in the background. The picture of Onobrakpeya in a forest is a composite of one I took of him at his Mushin home, another of his Akporode installation, both combined with an AI generated image of Onobrakpeya seated in front of the Akporode shrine located in a forest.
Natural Synthesis: From Zaria to Nsukka and Beyond
The figures of Bruce Onobrakpeya to that of Victor Ekpuk to Chiagoziem Orji represent a movement across
three generations of Nigerian art history, carrying the flame of what
Onobrakpeya and his fellow students at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria called
Natural Synthesis, a convergence of African and Western art and thought in
creating modern African art, an orientation actualized in the University of
Nigeria, Nsukka school, which Orji attended, the University of Ife school,
where Ekpuk was trained and Onobrakpeya's independent artistic practice.
This story is born from the visual and philosophical convergence I observe through the images. All three artists intersect at the convergence of art, spirituality and
philosophy, projected in the synergy developed in the story and suggested by
the image.
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Convergence Table by META AI Drawing on the Story/Essay