Nkadioka, Eyisi-Ebuluo Foundation,and Ichi Renaissance

Chikaogwu Kanu

“Reflections on our heritage” is the theme of the inaugural art exhibition of the 2021 Nkadioka festival that is inspired by the Igbo ichi marks. The exhibition features the following artists from the Nsukka School: Chijioke Onuora who also doubles as the curator, Ozioma Onuzulike, Stanley Ugonabo, Jude Onah, Sunday Odoh, and Peter Igbeaku. Nkadioka is an annual cultural festival sponsored by the Eyisi-Ebuluo foundation in conjunction with others.

Nkadioka, formerly known as Mma-nka festival, is an annual cultural fiesta of the Igbo people of Neni in Anambra State that features masquerade displays, dances, songs, and more. The high point of this cultural celebration is the symbolic re-enactment of the moribund tradition of Igbu ichi. Ichi is a facial scarification that was common among the Igbo men of the present Anambra State. It was also a marker of rite of passage that qualifies one to take an Ozo title as an adult. This cultural rebirth dates back to 1982, when the traditional festival hitherto suppressed by European colonialism and Christianity, was revived by the Eyisi Ebuluo Foundation (EEF). According to the foundation’s website:

EEF started unofficially in the 1970s, with the founder Eyisi Ebuluo supporting local culture and his community at Neni, Anambra state. In 1982, as the executive president of Umudioka Community in Neni, along with other members of the executive, he revived a neglected festival, the Nkadioka Festival, a traditional festival that had been forgotten after the Nigerian Civil War. Since then, the organisation has been part of several efforts to increase awareness of local culture in Neni and beyond.

In 2008, the organisation was officially registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). Since then, EEF has been focused on spreading the love of culture. We do this through support for festivals, art exhibitions and more. Everything that we do has a root in a local tradition.

The 2021 inaugural art exhibition runs from December 27 through the Nka-Di-oka festival (December 31), and ends on January 31, 2022. The exhibition which is curated by Chijioke Onuora of the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka explores contemporary engagement of ichi linear marks by the artists of the Nsukka school through the adaptation of ichi on other mediums of expression to produce works that speak to socio-political issues. So, ichi which classically deploys the human face as the traditional ground now finds expression in other mediums of Art such as drawing, sculpture, ceramics, and painting.

Eyisi Ebuluo I – Looking Back, 2021, the supposed theme work of this exhibition is created by Chijioke Onuora, the curator. I describe it as the theme work because the sculptural piece graphically captures the idea and essence of the exhibition which centers around ichi marks and its contemporary artistic interrogation. The pyrographed wood panel work with cyclical burnt ichi-like background has an emphasized figurative portrait profile of the man (Eyisi Ebuluo) wearing ichi on his face, and placed on the left side of the work. The emphasis is achieved through the application of the negative and positive space technique of uli – a plain surface of the portrait image placed against a burnt background covered with linear inscriptions. An asymmetrical balance is accomplished by the punctuation of the background cyclical lines with a small plain space in front of the portrait that bears the mma nka the major tool of the sculptor/surgeon known as the Di oka. The portrait looks meditatively at the knife, perhaps ruminating on the painful processes one passes through in receiving the ichi marks. Nevertheless, the gaze at the knife can also be described as ambivalent, as the man’s facial expression simultaneously reveals a sense of pride and pain. In spite of all this, there is an overwhelming sense of accomplishment as the ichi recipient now attains full manhood status that comes with some exclusive privileges such as the taking of the prestigious Ozo title. This overwhelming sense of accomplishment is symbolically represented by the preponderant burnt cyclic background that suggests an air of excitement. On the whole this theme work can be adjudged successful by its harmonious combination of elements guided by a profound understanding of the principles of design.

The artists also experimented with the altering of the colonial photographic representation from an object of gaze to an object of admiration, an adaptation which arguably speaks to the colonial gaze of the Igbo/Africa by the West. Consequently, Eyisi Ebuluo black and white unclad portrait was turned from an object of colonial gaze to a contemporary (re)presentation that is dignifying and celebratory – an object of beauty, admiration, and edification. This is exemplified by the Oil Painting of Eyisi Ebuluo, 2021 of Jude Onah. In this very interesting painting, Onah turns a black and white unclad portrait of Eyisi Ebuluo into a contemporary titled Igbo man in his full regalia – feathered red cap, flowing white robe, and beaded necklace round his neck.

Ozioma Onuzulike on his own part explores clay medium in his interrogation of ichi. In his work Tea kettle and Serving bowl, Onuzulike’s aesthetic carved lines call to mind the ichi marks. The inscribed lines suggest the way Africa is partitioned and/or continues to be partitioned by the West in search of her natural resources since the Berlin conference of 1884-5. In this context, the tea kettle and the serving bowl represent Africa while the carved lines represent the dividing of Africa into several units for the sake of her natural resources’ exploitation. Similarly, in the ongoing [Re]Entanglements exhibition of N. W. Thomas collections at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, United Kingdom that also features Onuzulike’s work inspired by the same ichi marks, the artist refers to the ichi as an act of fragmentation that speaks to “a continuing history of damage” perpetrated by the West, and for emphasis sake, he reiterated that “they are still fragmenting us.”

Finally, in critically engaging socio-political issues, this exhibition can be adjudged to have succeeded in addressing its objective of revisiting the moribund ichi tradition through the lens of contemporaneity. This exhibition which can be described as a milestone in the cultural revivalist mission of the Eyisi Ebuluo Foundation (EEF) through the Nkadioka festival deserves a great commendation. It is quite commendable in view of the colossal damage colonialism has done to Igbo/African culture. On this note I say a big thank you to the Eyisi Ebuluo Foundation for a job well done, and also encourage them never to rest on their oars.

Kanu, currently a doctoral student of art history in the Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, writes from Lagos.