Reliving a Night of Terror  with Mixed Feelings 

Yinka Olatunbosun 

Far from reliving trauma, the recent screening of the short documentary film Statues Also Breathe in Lagos revisits the once-burning global news item (#BringBackOurGirls) about the missing schoolchildren from the Chibok community in Borno State. In one fell swoop, 276 girls vanished from the Government Girls Secondary School on April 14, 2014. Ranging between ages 16 and 18, these young girls were kidnapped by the terror group that robbed them of their dreams. Although 57 of them escaped while over 100 were rescued, no fewer than 108 girls are still missing. A few had died.

In documenting these young girls, 108 students were drawn from Obafemi Awolowo University and nearby communities in Osogbo as well as Lagos to participate in making memorial sculptures for the missing Chibok girls.

The 17-minute documentary, directed by Chioma Onyenwe and Vincent Lorca, captures the activities culminating in a groundbreaking one-day workshop held to immortalise the Chibok girls. The exhibition, which was a collaborative project by the French sculptor Prune Nourry and the Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, echoes an earlier artistic statement by Nourry. In 2012, the artist explored the subject matter of women and the earth in her army of “Terracotta Daughters” in China.

In retelling the story of the missing Chibok girls, she assembled yet another army of Ife terracotta heads. Created in the style of the iconic ancestral Ife head, eight original sculptures were made at first, and in the end, 108 heads were cast in clay sourced from Ile-Ife by potters from a female potter’s community in Ilorin alongside students of Obafemi Awolowo University. A delegation of mothers of the Chibok girls and girls who managed to escape Boko Haram captivity were also in attendance, honouring and remembering their friends and loved ones depicted in the sculptures.

On screen were raw footage of the participating students in their work spaces, excited to be taking part in a project. Perhaps the visual paradox rests on the fact that the tear-jerking emotion didn’t consume the artists until the actual presentation of the sculptures before the parents of some of the missing or late Chibok girls.

For a mother who had lost two daughters to a night of terror, it was painful to watch the sculptures. But for another, it was gratifying to have a tangible item that connects with the memory of the missing girl—even with moments of shared quirky humour around how close to perfection some of the facial features were.

Statues Also Breathe is a collaboration with a two-prong impact: to raise awareness about the plight of the girls who are still missing and to highlight the global struggle for girls’ education.

Using overhead shots helps the director reinforce the bird’s eye view, which is symbolic in more ways than one. It could be the presumed presence of an all-knowing being or the international community, which could not compromise cross-border security protocols to rescue the girls.

The aesthetics of this “army of girls” hinge on its indivisibility—the pieces must remain together as a complete artwork. Expectedly, these 108 heads signed by the respective students would go on tour before they would return to the permanent collection of a museum in Africa.

Directed by Chioma Onyenwe and Vincent Lorca, the Statues Also Breathe documentary gives life to the lifeless and the missing Chibok girls, validating their voices. By interrogating this collective trauma, the art scholars behind this project have carefully bridged the gap between “town and gown.”

The plot is woven around the conversations with the mothers of the eight models and their desire to ensure the world does not forget the girls.

Dr. Olusegun Fajigbe of the Department of Fine and Applied Art at Obafemi Awolowo University recalled the moments that led to the historic project and its cultural significance.

“The intention was to use art as a tool of social awareness, transformation, and reconstruction in order to shed light on certain ills of society, such as kidnapping and insecurity, and that is why we have chosen to use sculpture to tell the story of the Chibok girls,” he said.

For the producer of the documentary movie, Ade Bantu, getting the community involved is key to projecting the message. “From the onset, it was clear that we had to involve the community and seek their consent as well. Through various contacts, I reached out to communities. In consultation, we got in touch with the parents of the missing Chibok girls for their consent. It was as if our people were almost forgetting the girls. I think many considered this an immortalising.”