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
The stuff in my office needs organizing. One day I’ll get to it. One of these days when I have nothing to do.
I met a young woman living in Nigeria online more than ten years ago.
We became friends and exchanged lots of chats.
She had just graduated with a degree in engineering.
She couldn’t get a job.
I watched her struggle for many years.
A really gorgeous woman transformed into a shell of herself.
Her mother fell ill.
She began to live with her married sister.
She fell ill.
It is five years already when I did this solo.
The soil is the medium–not a single drop of synthetic paint in my work: I produce every color with carefully collected soils.
I laff so-tay las’ night my head fall commot my neck.
And I’m not making up this story.
My Chinese friend called me and said her friend, Tunde, who lives in Canada, wanted me to tell her the meaning of “Cat” in Yoruba.
“Why didn’t Tunde just tell you what ‘cat’ means in Yoruba himself?” I asked surprised.
Yes, tomorrow I will give a gallery talk in the MAKING AFRICA exhibition at the Blanton Museum, University of Texas, Austin.
On my 64th birthday anniversary, I celebrate my mother, the one person most responsible for who I am today.
She does not even know the date of her birth.
But she keeps mine so close to heart.
My father, Oladejo Okediji, is the known one. He is the famous author, who wrote novels, plays, poems, and essays. When he passed last year at 90, nobody even mentioned my mother once, as they poured deserved eulogies on him.