This article is published in issue 40.2 of BlackFlash Magazine – Get this issue.
“DO I INTIMIDATE?” started as an anthropology research question for my university classes. In a series of ten interviews, I asked elders and youths in my Yoruba Community how it felt to wear their traditional attire in public. Unsurprisingly, a few responses ridiculed the idea of cultural shame and sympathized with the shocked onlookers. The participants understood that moving to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, meant embracing Western ideologies of clothing. Wearing their cultural attire in public invited the idea of intimidation. The participants experienced micro-aggressions such as infantilization, non-consensual touching, tribalism, name-calling, and extreme forms of berating. It felt like a gamble to walk outside. Either a group of families stare at you like you are a museum exhibit, or retail workers refuse to help due to language barriers. I became enamoured with the concept of cultural intimidation among immigrants and refugees coming to Canada. In 2021, I wrote the poem “DO I INTIMIDATE?” as a response to the interviews. In particular, I wanted to focus on the melding of community as an answer to cultural intimidation.
The photographic project “DO I INTIMIDATE?” is a look into the colonialism of clothing and how it plays into the intersectional narrative of the modern immigrant. Using interdisciplinary media including poetry, videography, and self-portraits, “DO I INTIMIDATE?” shares one of the most intimate activities in Yoruba culture: Gele-making. Gele is a large and elaborate head-tie covering the head and ears of a Yoruba woman. A sign of empowerment and pride, each Gele is tailored to invite and entice those around her. Gele-making is metaphor for the conformation of Nigerian culture to Western standards. “DO I INTIMIDATE?” shamelessly exhibits the beauty of Gele-making as a sophisticated way of pushing or critiquing society’s limitations.
The project is created by a team of BIPOC artists from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The dress, designed by Aldeneil Española Jr., was created to embody a regalness accustomed to Western expectations of beauty. In our conversations, we connected over similar frustrations with our artistic freedom, and concluded that our expressions are meant to confound and confuse. The dress paired with the traditional Gele and tribal makeup creates a metaphor of the immigrant experience: an experience of conforming and breaking barriers. The tribal makeup, created by Theodora Addo, resembles similar incentives. Tribal makeup is created as an act of preserving beauty and proudly showcasing your family and background to the public. The symbols represent the universe, love, justice, war, humankind, and adaptability. The white paint bleeds into the skin and dress, raw and always present. Special thanks to our Gele artists, Mrs. Ogunrinde and Titilayo Akintade, who shared their wisdom on the art of Gele-making with our collective, and our photographer and videographer, Emmanuel Wani, who brought the vision into a forever medium. It was important that the project become a collaboration of like-minded artists, each placing their knowledge into the vision. The project is in partnership with Black in Saskatchewan and Art Gallery of Regina, Here and Now: Live Art Initiative with Remai Modern Gallery, Pomegranate Gallery with Persephone Theatre, PAVED Arts Studio, and Bistak African Grocery.
Photographer: Emmanuel Wani
Designer: Aldeneil Española Jr.
Makeup Artist: Theodora Addo
Gele Artists: Mrs. Ogunrinde, Titilayo Akintade
Creative Director and Writer: Peace Akintade
Location: Remai Modern gallery
“Do I Intimidate?”
Take a piece of the fabric
Slowly
Inch it round your delicate temples,
Pray for the sharp edges to miss your eyes.
Child, your heritage is a two-edged sword.
Use one side to praise your ancestors.
Praise them for gifting you history.
Praise them for rubbing your skin with Earth.
Praise them for your smile lines,
Your tough, calloused hands.
Your heritage is a two-edged sword.
Use one side to defend yourself.
Show only the flat side, the safe side.
Child, when others attack, lower your gaze.
Soften the blow of your rich culture.
Never let them know you yield a powerful sword.
Here, hold this piece of fabric.
Use strength to help your brethren.
Inch it round your delicate temple.
Round and Round
Round and Round
These teachings taught me gratitude,
The right attitude when witnessing
How the world rationalized our
Frantic rhythm and coordinated pleas for justice.
The world ignored us, so we hid our
Twisting rhythms and uncoordinated
Barbarian lifestyle.
I am calm
I am round
We are civilized
In an uncivilized colonial mindset.
These teachings taught me
To fear the power
of expressing myself.
The world is not ready
To see a Black child
Love her culture so dearly.
So dearly she would
Shield herself in Iro ati Buba,
Geles, ipele, Aso-Oke.
Do I Intimidate?
Do I Intimidate?
Is my blade so sharp,
Must I only defend?
Round and Round
The gele goes.
Watch it grow larger and larger
Witness my identity shift
My broken legacy reclaim
Its place in a foreign land.
Do I Intimidate?
Do I Intimidate?
What happens if we let the fabric
Hit the ceiling, like sunflowers
Having no hindrance
To their true self?
What happens if we used our
Calloused hands, and graced the
Gele, round and round, not
Caring who gaps, who is intimidated
By beauty.
We are not digestible.
Just like the scotch bonnet
That scorches and flavors
Everything it touches.
How powerful is our beauty.
Not bracing for anyone, anymore.
What happens if we never stop
Itching round our delicate temples.
For anyone, anymore?
Do I Intimidate?
No.
Do I empower?
Am I complex?
Am I culture?
Am I heritage?
Am I pride?
Yes, and more.
Peace Akintade, Do I Intimidate, 2021. Photographs. Do I Intimidate: Remai Modern, Saskatoon SK. Photo by Emmanuel Wani.
Photographer: Emmanuel Wani
Designer: Aldeneil Española Jr.
Makeup Artist: Theodora Addo
Gele Artists: Mrs. Ogunrinde, Titilayo Akintade
Creative Director and Writer : Peace Akintade
Location: Remai Modern gallery
Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye (she/her) is an African-Canadian Interdisciplinary Poet, Public Speaker, Chorus-Poem Playwrighter, and Thespian residing in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. Organically from Yorubaland Nigeria, Peace explores the intersectionality of the artist community from an explorer’s perspective, dipping her honey-stained fingers into poetry, dance, performance art, critical research, and the theatre world. Recipient of the RBC SaskArts Emerging Artist Award, and the Queens Platinum Jubliee Medel. 2020-2021 Youth Poet Laurate, 2022 READSaskatoon Poet Laurate, and currently finishing her Artist Cohort with the Remai Modern Gallery for the Here and Now: Live Arts Initiative bringing accessible poetry workshops to the general public.
This article is published in issue 40.2 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue
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