Simmone Ahiaku meditates on a conversation with director Tobi Onabolu.
Simmone Ahiaku & Image: Tobi Onabolu
Writer / Artist
Articles5
Born in London, Tobi Onabolu is an artist and writer who lives nomadically with a base in Grand Popo, Benin Republic. He works in an interdisciplinary and collaborative style predominantly across moving-image, poetry, and performance. Interrogating the process of inner child reconnection, Tobi uses his body and lived experience as a conceptual point of departure. His practice is concerned with expanding consciousness through space and across time as an avenue for personal and collective healing. Playing with breathwork, movement, and dance, his work evokes the ethereal, considering humans beyond their physical form, as energetic and spiritual beings.
I seldom meet someone so young with such a strong conviction about who they are, and what their place is in the world. I say this as if I’m a wise old sage – I’m not. I’m only about two or three years older than Lady Donli who is in...
Tobi Onabolu & Image: Karis Beaumont
‘An Ode to Her Excellence’ is an unabashed celebration of black womanism and reimagining power structures, building on a photographic visual archive. Our Ode: “FOR YOU ARE POWER, YOUR RADIANCE INFECTIOUS WOMXN OF VIRTUE & RESILIENCE GREATNESS IS YOUR REVOLUTION COURAGE YOUR ALLY. YOUR HEROISM PREVAILS. FOR YOU ARE BLACK,...
Whilst theory holds value in its ability to suggest practices and guides for how humans should act, one of the major critiques of theory is its dislocation from reality. The dialogue between theory and reality is one which must remain continuous, to ensure reality is informing theory. Furthermore, reality is...
As Nigeria’s entertainment capital, and a cultural hotspot on the continent, Lagos continues to thrive with artistic effervescence, particularly amongst the youth. Coupled with the forthcoming presidential elections, poignant political artworks, exhibitions, and projects have taken to the fore, and in a number of cases launching direct condemnations of the...