The Way of the Calabash: Part 2: Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji, Victor Ekpuk and Bruce Onobrakpeya

Abstract

This piece of speculative fiction and art criticism navigates the liminal space between Nigerian visual art and metaphysical journeying. The narrative develops The Way of the Calabash as a mythic-philosophical journey into self-realization, drawing on a visual constellation of contemporary Nigerian art, guided by symbolic figures of Wisdom and Mediation.

Through verbal maps of crimson spirals and radiant squares, the narrative weaves Nsibidi and Uli symbols into a journey of self-discovery, echoing the philosophy of Natural Synthesis actualized as the fusion of African cosmology, art, and philosophy across generations.

The images—featuring Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji's calabash-bearing woman, a self-portrait, titled "Onye Kwe, Chi Ya Ekwe", ''My God Affirms When I Agree'', an image configured by Nsibidi motifs, Victor Ekpuk's Nsibidi inspired abstractions, and Bruce Onobrakpeya's art and ancestral presence—serves as visual anchor, pulsing with inscriptions that mirror the story's enigmatic pathways.

Drawing on visual vocabularies integrating these representatives of three generations of Nigerian art, the story explores the calabash as a vessel for potential, a map without fixed coordinates, and a convergence point for art, spirituality, and Igbo cosmology, translating symbolic artworks into verbal landscapes of the inner journey.

Distilling insights from the artistic system Nsibidi and the philosophy of Natural Synthesis, this piece frames creativity as both inheritance and initiation: a straight line and a spiral, universal yet uniquely yours, under a sun unseen but luminous. In this work, contemporary Nigerian art functions as a site where metaphysics, identity, and perception converge in a dynamic process of becoming.

Part 1: "The Woman in the Forest: Chiagoziem Nneamaka Orji's 'Onye Kwe, Chi Ya Ekwe' and Bruce Onobrakpeya's 'Akporode' "

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The Awakening: Initiate of the Way of the Calabash

"You are now an initiate of the Way of the Calabash, heading towards a destination unknown, a destination only you can reach '', the old man said.

I was puzzled.

How does a person wake up from sleep to find themself on a journey, a journey unplanned?

''You triggered something that summoned you here'', the old man continued, as if hearing my thoughts or guessing my puzzlement.

''You now walk in the dimension between realities, neither purely physical nor non-physical but intertwining'' his daughter clarified.

''Who are you people?'' I asked.

The Guardians

''We are guardians of the pathways between dimensions, between possibilities, between being and becoming'' she stated.

''We exist to guide people to fulfill their possibilities. That calabash I passed to you represents a person's greatest potential.

We are known by different names by various people. You may call my father 'Wisdom' and me 'a guide to wisdom' '', she concluded.

The Destination with No Name : A Map Made of Questions

''What is this place you say you are guiding me to?'' I responded, still baffled.

''It has no name, but embodies all possibilities. The journey there is both a straight line and a spiral, under a sun unseen but luminous, opening into eternity'', the old man continued, leaving me still confused though vague chinks of light began to enter into my mind as some of what he was saying gradually began to make a strange kind of sense.

''The best we can offer you as you begin this journey are our words and maps of the journey, but they are not maps as you understand them'' the woman explained.

An image blossomed in my mind.

A multi-coloured spiral ending in a crimson question mark as its background pulsed with countless enigmatic inscriptions.

''The only way you can successfully undergo this journey is to make yourself a walking question mark. Everything you see or experience has something to teach you. I can only guide you but you must find those meanings by yourself'', she urged.

Another image rose to my mind's eye.

A sequence of nested squares converging upon a radiant center, dynamic against a space alive with strange configurations.

''The path to your ultimate possibilities is universal, yet unique. The road belongs to all yet is yours alone. The destination reverberates across time and space but you return alone to your centre, intersecting with others but uniquely yours'', she clarified.

Intriguing. Puzzling words describing a mysterious journey.

The Choice: One Foot in Front of the Other

I began to desire to experience the wonderful things being so compellingly described.''Lets continue then'' I answered.

The journey began.

One foot in front of the other, we moved on.

Artistic and Philosophical Context : The Convergence of Three Generations : Three Flames, One Fire

This story is inspired by the convergence, for me, of Chiagoziem Nnaemeka Orji's self portrait ''Onye Kwe, Chi Ya Ekwe'', the picture of the woman with a calabash on her head in the collage, and the art of Victor Ekpuk, two Nigerians deeply influenced by the intersecting cultures of Igboland, for Orji, and of Efik and Ibibio, for Ekpuk, influences centred in the visual symbolism of Uli and Nsibidi communication systems for Orji and  Nsibidi  for Ekpuk.

This story reworks descriptions of Ekpuk's art in terms of verbal pictures of the journey of knowledge and its destination, adapted from statements about the Ekpuk artworks shown in the collage-the red spiral (Good Morning, Sunrise)  and the concentric squares ( Sanctuary 2), and my own interpretation of Ekpuk's spiral ending with a crimson topped question mark ( Composition 2).

Orji's self portrait is centralized because it is the primary inspiration for this narrative series.

The old man is inspired by Bruce Onobrakpeya, emerging from the presence of his art in the first story in the series.The picture of the old man with a staff is composed of one I took of Onobrakpeya at his house with  a ChatGPT generated image of a tree in the background.

The picture of Onobrakpeya in a forest is a composite of one I took of him at his Mushin home, another of his Akporode installation, both combined with an AI generated image of Onobrakpeya seated in front of the Akporode shrine located in a forest.

Natural Synthesis: From Zaria to Nsukka and Beyond

The figures of Bruce Onobrakpeya to that of Victor Ekpuk to Chiagoziem Orji represent a movement across three generations of Nigerian art history, carrying the flame of what Onobrakpeya and his fellow students at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria called Natural Synthesis, a convergence of African and Western art and thought in creating modern African art, an orientation actualized in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka school, which Orji attended, the University of Ife school, where Ekpuk was trained and Onobrakpeya's independent artistic practice.

This story is born from the visual and philosophical convergence I observe through the images. All three artists intersect at the convergence of art, spirituality and philosophy, projected in the synergy developed in the story and suggested by the image.

Convergence Table by META AI Drawing on the Story/Essay