Bèbè Ìdí (Beaded Waistline)
Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: Bèbè Ìdí (Beaded Waistline)
Medium: Terracotta
Date 2010
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Artist: Moyo Okediji
Title: Bèbè Ìdí (Beaded Waistline)
Medium: Terracotta
Date 2010
This is one of the paintings I just discovered in my garage.
The painting celebrates Robert Hayden’s poem, “Middle Passage.”
It is a really long poem.
The painting focuses on this excerpt:
“That Crew and Captain lusted with the comeliest
of the savage girls kept naked in the cabins;
that there was one they called The Guinea Rose
and they cast lots and fought to lie with her: ”
The character across the floor of the ship being whipped to consent is the lady called Guinea Rose in the poem.
Captive No More (III)
7.
Music is the language of tragedy,
and dance, the vocabulary of trauma.
Silence, the death of feelings,
marks the beginning of madness.
After my great grandmother in vain
yelled the name of her son, Akin,
several times, and got no response,
she stepped outside and scanned
where he was playing,
and yelled his name again,
when she did not see him there
her stomach sank
because down in the pit of her womb
she knew he was gone.
To My Unborn Child Learn to listen Between the lines. Words are nothing but mesmerizing sounds The word “water”Is not wet.
Law of diminishing returns
My work displayed at the Museum Of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Miami, for the 2019 Miami Basel event.