What the MoMA Did To My Momma Series #1
Moyo Okediji
Title: What the MoMA Did To My Momma Series #1
Medium: Collage
Date: April 2018
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Moyo Okediji
Title: What the MoMA Did To My Momma Series #1
Medium: Collage
Date: April 2018
In 2001, homesick, I returned to Nigeria after staying away for nine years in the US.
My destination was Ife, and I lodged in a hotel in Lagos for the first week. I used the hotel rental car, with a hired driver, to run errands. One day, the rental car driver who drove me around Lagos, said “Prof, why not just buy a car instead of spending all your money on car hires? Don’t you plan to stay in Nigeria for a couple of months? It’s best for you to get a fairly used car.”
My mumu is too much.
Hear my story o.
They just fixed the electricity at my place in Nigeria.
To get it fixed, I bought four poles, and hundreds of yards of cable.
I contributed hundreds of thousands of naira to get the transformer.
I bought the meter.
And paid to have the entire thing installed.
But I understand that none of these things that I bought belongs to me.
They all belong to the government.
Olódùmarè is a miracle worker.
Here is a picture of the latest sculptures at the Àkòdì Òrìṣà.
The sculptures, representing a group of indigenous Ile Ife divinities including two male and two female divinities, still are works in progress.
Yes, tomorrow I will give a gallery talk in the MAKING AFRICA exhibition at the Blanton Museum, University of Texas, Austin.
The most central building on our school campus was also the building that gave me claustrophobia. It was the school chapel.
Right in front of the building was a stone monument. Within the monument was a plaque, with the inscription, “STUDY TO SHEW THYSELF APPROVED UNTO GOD. 2 Timothy, 2:15”
That, certainly, was not good English, I concluded. Even at age eleven, I felt they needed a copyeditor.
IT IS A GOAL
The population of Senegal is only 15 million.
It is less than the population of the city of Lagos alone.
But Nigeria got defeated and Senegal is the holder of the African Cup of Nations, the most prestigious trophy in soccer on the continent of Africa.