Ahamefula II,09 09 09...of our times and generation.

Ahamefula; is about our times and generation, it is about movement, it’s about revolution, emancipation, human development and discoveries, civilization clashes and neocon upsurge, cultural conflicts, moral and ethical bias, spirituality and the society, apocalyptic nightmares and the hopes for a new enlightenment. This exhibition is mirroring the beginning of time and man. How and why is entangled in the game of time how we believe that we can rule time, besides the sympathetic truth that time has been set to rule man, how much that man has done in the beginning and now manipulating time and how that we end up entangling ourselves.
In the beginning of time man was to live eternal, man was to live as long as time, if we desire eternity as humans, who gave us these desire: the desires of eternity. Man desires to live beyond time even in our death (the pharaoh’s greatest desire).
Who left the desires of eternity in us? There must be a connection between our desires to be eternal and eternity, but whose desire was time fulfilling and whose desire was man fulfilling when he dies.
If in the past, man’s greatest desire was to live in time, through time and beyond time, how smart are we now; now that we have consciously made time so fast, we are living in the greatest times of man, the fastest era in the history of man, we are experiencing the X age, internet Age, when man travels in virtual space in seconds speeds to their destination, we have technologies that transfer information in less seconds, we communicate with the fastest telecommunication system in time…

My interest to work on time has driven me to study fashion trends, scientific developments, technological advancements, societal norms, believes and values; we are living in the age of imagination already, human experiences have gradually moved from static to spatial, we live more inside ourselves, we live in a society that encourages self gratification, self satisfaction, self and self…community is gradually vanishing from our vocabularies…our times are selfish, we live in an age of selfishness…
Time like I have always said is what stops everything from happening at the same time…time is what is between today and tomorrow, time is what is between life and death, time is what is between you and meeting and time also between us parting…time was before we came, time is taking us to the unknown…where is the unknown of time, will time remain unknown when we get to the unknown?

National Youths Service Corps Workshop, Abuja

On Wednesday, March 18, 2009 approximately 1,000 recent graduates of Nigerian universities attended the program which is aimed nation-building and orienting the mindset of the youth to develop a better appreciation and patroitism was held at the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camp in Kubwa, a suburb of Abu

Dr. Tom Adaba who was the special guest speaker spoke on the theme of the workshop" MAKING NIGERIA A BETTER NATION BEGINS WITH YOU "he admonishes corps members not to bedetered by the bad examples some of our past and present leaders, but to see themselves as agents of cange and to believe in themselves in whatever they are doing.

While, the U.S. Embassy Counselor for Public Affairs, Ms. Atim Eneida George who was the guest speaker used the opportunity to encourage her audience to participate in Nigeria’s development.

She admonished the assembled Nigerian youth to get involved in strengthening the country’s institutions. Her talk titled “The Power of Citizen Driven Development” addressed the importance of association, advocacy, agency, compassion, and sweat equity as tools for development. She stressed that the freedom of association, which is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human rights as well as the U.S. and Nigerian constitutions, forms the bedrock of civil society, an essential ingredient in the democratic dispensation.

Also the initiator of the project, a cultural diplomate and art consultant; Nduwhite Ndubuisi Ahanonu found a way through the heart of the corpers in his words: I can hear someone say who is this guy…or who are these people…I am one of you, we are one of you.

I am one of who worked extra hours to pay his school fees…because there is no social system in my country.
I am one of you who was thrown out of the exam hall because I couldn’t pay my school fees,

I am one of you who walked to school every day because the mass transit I was told that was provided to carry me as a student has been sent out to raise fund for the school system,

I am one of you, who bought handout and textbooks every semester because I was told that if I don’t buy them I will fail not because I did not attend classes or read them.

I am one of you, that got involve, in juvenile trouble and activities, because the society says that if I don’t I am a Jew man.
I am one of you slept in the school hostel with other eight roommates…because the money allocated to the system to build new hostel was carried away in Ghana must go.
I am one of you, who have been there,… done this,… done that…
I am Nduwhite Ndubuisi Ahanonu…a cultural diplomat, initiator of the project re-imagine Nigeria!
Re-imagine Nigeria is geared towards re-educating, redefining, redirecting and repositioning Nigeria’s image, it also seeks to involve young creative individuals in a collective effort geared towards using our culture, which is the essence of a people to instill in us a deeper appreciation of our national identity.
In all the ruins around us every day, as I listen to the news, as i walk across the street and stop to take a bus at the bus stop, I still see butterflies flying, Then I stopped to ask what is in the caterpillar that makes you think it will become a butterfly…the butterfly is inside the caterpillar…what is in our great nation Nigeria that has stopped us from flying is inside us…what will makes us fly again is still inside us.
Every day we hear in the news terrible things about our beautiful nation Nigeria…hear me this day that all the damages that is going on…will not stop if you and me do not raise up to the challenge…we are experiencing , political instability, financial crises at global level, social unrest, social irresponsibility and image slandering.

Most of us are tied of the negativities and anomalies…as much as we desire change it is not automatic, never will and never can,the change we need today…must start with me and you.
Remember that pure water sachet bag that you just drank and dropped indiscriminately…I tell you my friend you have just added a 25years environmental pollution to this great nation.
Remember, how you walked to that bus stop and people are on the line, but you maneuver your way to the front…you just deprived someone his opportunity.
But today, I need you to remember that we are not what we did and where we have been is less important as where you are going…if we must re-imagine Nigeria, if we must fly and again, if we must build on our creative capital, intellectual capital and human heritage.
All that we will be needing is a little commitment to the national pride, patriotism, a change of view, change of mind, a little empathy, sensitive and involvement…just stop, take a new look, think anew, renovate and re-imagine Nigeria.

Thank you.

In the begining of time( a site installation by Ndubuisi Nduwhite Ahanonu)

"In the beginning of time"; is about our times and generation, it is about movement, it's about revolution, evolution, emancipation, human development and discoveries, civilization clashes and neocon upsurge, cultural conflicts, moral and ethical bias, spirituality and the society, apocalyptic nightmares and the hopes for a new enlightenment. This "Site installation", is mirroring the beginning of time and man, how and why man is entangled in the game of time, how we believe that we can rule time, besides the sympathetic truth that time has been set to rule man, how much that man has done in the beginning and now, manipulating time and how that we end up entangling ourselves. In the beginning of time, man was to live eternal, man was to live as long as time, if we desire eternity as humans, who gave us these desires; the desires of eternity, man desires to live beyond time even in our death( the Pharaoh's greatest desire).Who left the desires of eternity in us? There must be a connection between our desires to be eternal and eternity, but whose desire was time fulfilling and whose desire was man fulfilling when he dies.

If in the past, man's greatest desire was to live in time, through time and beyond time, how smart are we now; now that we have consciously made time so fast, we are living in the greatest times of man, the fastest era in the history of man, we are experiencing the X age, internet Age, when man travels in virtual space in seconds speeds to their destination, we have technologies that transfer information in less seconds, we communicate with the fastest telecommunication system in time.[ Our cities operate 24/7 in time, we work more times than we ever have before, we spend more time outside ourselves, stretching beyond our abilities to reach our desires in order to control time -time is like a shadow sleeping in wait, waiting for you, waiting for you to breathe your first fresh air, slowly ticking from the day you strolled into these space called life.
Our times have changed greatly and our generations has metamorphosed into a spider web, we the webs, … and creating millions of network of human desires and passion to live beyond the frail web we made. we get entangled into our own web of technological, economical and social traps that we set, waiting for our prey, who are not watching to stroll into these webs, we are experiencing the greatest Age of human revolution, evolution, emancipation, assimilations, development, networking of human and national relationship, neocolonism and global citizenry. Yet we bring along with us, our personal interest, national mandate, manipulations of humans capacity and capital.[Photo][Photo][Photo]Yet we are doomed more than ever before , never in time before are we experiencing depression like we are doingtoday-Young generations of our times are now involve in suicide which use to be common with the older generations . With the entire modern games gadget to keep us away from loneliness yet we are getting lonelier and alienated from each other. We are losing the force for living; no connection beyond gadget or internet connection which is virtual, man is dying by time, by the elements of time by the seconds of time...

In the words of Domenico Quarantar, Curator for Pixxelpoint (For Gods Sake) "technology violates our privacy like only God used to be able to… technology is an element and product of our time, developed over and within time, it imparts is glaring in our time. We can not replace this true force that drives man, we can't replace Him with our virtual game; games of time.If time was set by man, why can't man control time with all that we have achieved, "just for one moment I beg you man, pause time for a second" then why try if you can't.Time has conquered our greatest achievement, time has out done our greatest record, and time has exceeded our greatest height.Our generation is experiencing the fastest time in history, a period when time is fast and short, has the ticking increased without our attention? Maybe someone fastened time without our knowledge? We have even increased in our ticking of endeavor. Why I am talking of time as if I am not lost in time…I came met time and I will and leave if I wish in time…follow through my poem, I will meet you at the end of time, I mean at the end of the beginning.

God created the earth

and took a vacation
Mankind was in control
directing the shows

the shows of woes

of agony,

despair,

of hopelessness,

of mirage

chasing blues and dream

of the illusions of reality,

the pain of suffering in the womb,

dying before been born

with popping eyes of

like owls eyes in hell.

Mankind is in part divine

a troubled stream from

a pure source broken

from the source,

search of independence,

blind in knowledge,

free in ignorance,

obscene like cancer,

bitter as the cud

stinking like a rotten meat,

drying up like a raisin in the sun,

vanishing like a vapour,

a smoke or a cry

as fleeting as a sound a smell or taste

this I know, but more than this I know.

I know because I hear his silent sufferings.

I foresee his funeral-destiny,

his deep pains of pride like a devil sick of sin,

his unseen agonies and suffocating sense of woe

like a crushed goat,

his resistance and his confusion,

his self tarp like a fly caught in a spider web.

Man, what torment,

What pity,

that you have refused to listen

to the singing birds,

the twinkling stars,

the sound from the crystal rain balls,

the cry of the newborn

that knowledge can not reach him in this life,

love.

What blindness,

that you have refused to see,

the flowing glass streams

the blossoms beauty of the stars

the unending generations of silver lines in the sky,

the magnificent colours of the rainbow.

See mankind,

see, you imbecile worm of the earth

sink of uncertainty and error

let love rise in your soul

ike the sun (your soul the depository of truth)

for He is long returned

And in control.

RE-IMAGINE NIGERIA!

When I delivered a paper in Lagos on the 16th of August 2008, at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Titled: Re-imagine Nigeria, I began the first few lines with….”Obama is on the spotlight because he believes he can, today, YES WE CAN, has become a style, fashion, language and song in all the human minds that who believe in change and posterity.
Obama’s song, yes we can is been sang by all, because he did not sing alone like the birds do. We are singing YES WE CAN, because, he first of all said, Yes I can. He imagined he could, he believed he could, he saw himself in his mind’s eye as the President of the United States of America. Today, he can proudly say “Yes I have”.
May I invite you to take a journey back home to our beautiful country, and imagine all the possibilities if we can only believe and say : YES WE CAN, yes we can make it better than we met it.
Imagine a new Nigeria with National pride, imagine our Nation with great tolerance for each other, a nation with of social responsibilities…national consciousness, patriotism, education, innovation and creativity, a new state of mind, curious open mindedness in a population that welcomes the challenges of a global world.
Our story can only be told better by us….and our History-being His story, will be told when we had finished walked this path, the greatest part of our story, will be what we did for posterity and humanity…for we are not here for service to ourselves alone but for our neighbours. Our grand aim is to use culture and creativity to reinstall in Nigerians a lasting and trusting national pride and rediscover new elements of our cultural diversity.
Imagine, a Nigeria where we are rated the number one in the world brand index because of stable economy, sustainable democratic system, exposed tourism rich cultural value…cultural value is the basis of a nation’s strength, and I tell you ours is in our diversity. The cultural diversity of our country is the reason why I can sit beside another man that does not speak my language, and discuss politics, and the 7 point agenda of my president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
It is this strength of the cultural diversity of our beloved nation that will make me stop, on a busy day, to help that little boy on the other side of the road cross over, or pick up the abandoned baby on the roadside, without waiting for him or she to speak his or her first word, so I may confirm whether he or she my is tribe or not. It is in the strength of our diversity, that I was born in the north, grew up in the north and here I am again in the central north.
My beloved country men imagine a country, where CNN is streaming that young talented Nigerian who is a whiz kid, prototyping and building his own computer, where that Nigerian engineer is helping solve global issues at the International level, where a Nigerian is the head astrologist leading the next trip to the moon, imagine on Prime Time, the world’s global warming solution is discovered by a Nigerian scientist, where the most expensive art piece is the work of Ben Enwonwu or the likes of him, and a Nigeria with the greatest creative capital in the world.
Creative solution is creativity, creativity is natural, nature is what is common to a set of people, culture is simply a way of life or a belief of a people…our culture is a part of us, we need to harness these unending resources of ours. This is the most important aspect for Culture in a globalised world.
When you look at the artworks on display, we have successfully conducted a form of diplomacy. The way we present ourselves to the outside is increasing becoming more important to our self image and relationship with other countries. Artists are our best communicators and basically the greatest innovators of our time. This makes our project “Re-Imagine Nigeria” an important promoter of the nation’s image, culture arts and as an arena for cultural experiences. We must take a proactive attitude as society develops. To make a difference, it is vital that they are developing and renewing in order to attract the public at large. The message is look around, think a new, re-define, re-imagine and re-innovate Nigeria.