Using Art to Keep 'Africa in Motion'

The “Africa in Motion” symposium, which took place last Thursday and Friday in the basement of the Northwest Labs, was at once a celebration of Harvard’s recent top-notch scholarship and a sobering reminder of the work that needs to be done to solve the continent’s problems. Seeing that these range from huge social inequality to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, it’s logical that the symposium was interdisciplinary in nature. However many might be surprised to hear that the event emphasized the role of the arts in addressing and solving these problems.

“The arts are integral to thinking about social and political issues,” says Professor Caroline M. Elkins, a History professor and interim chair of the Committee for African Studies. “They illuminate a whole world that the social sciences don’t address.” The importance of art colored the whole symposium. For example, Professor Ingrid Monson, an ethnomusicologist, was on the panel that discussed health issues on the African continent.

According to Elkins, the arts are vitally important to spreading information and combating preconceived notions both in Africa and globally. They are especially important when disseminating information that affects people’s everyday lives. “The arts are integral in combating the stigma of using anti-virals and other medications,” Elkins says.

The symposium also focused on African and African-related art outside of the continent. The reception featured performances by the Kuumba Singers as well as a drum and dance piece by PADAME, the Pan-African Dance and Music Ensemble led by Malinese drum virtuoso Joh Camara.

Notably, the “Africa in Motion” symposium included a student art competition, with a $500 prize for first place, open to undergraduate and graduate students. “Primarily we were looking for artistry. We would ask our selves ‘How does this fit into our theme of Africa in motion?’” says Professor Deborah Foster, Senior Lecturer on Folklore and Mythology and one of the judging panel. “We were trying to find a piece that captured what was going on both in Africa and in the Diaspora.”

The competition attracted submissions from all over the campus, and the three finalists drew artistic inspiration from a whole range of topics. Grete Viddal, a PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, submitted photos of Afro-Caribbean dance traditions taken during her fieldwork in Eastern Cuba. Doctorate student in Visual Anthropology Phillip A. Cartelli entered a short film about the mining town of Kédougou in Senegal.

Oludamini D. Ogunnaike ’07, a PhD student in African Studies and Religion and a resident tutor in Lowell House, was another of the finalists. His song entitled “Africa in Motion” is a piece for guitar, bass, conga drums, and cowbell. A white board was mounted on the wall next to the station where the song was presented to allow listeners to write down how the song made them think, move, and feel.

“I spent a year in Mali after I graduated in ’07. I was inspired by the music I was listening to at the time,” Ogunnaike says about his piece. Although purely instrumental, the way that the various musical lines meld together is a deliberate invocation of both African musical traditions as well as Africa’s collective history. “I wanted it to be rhythmic, but also repetitive because African history is cyclical,” he says. Ogunnaike is also convinced of the importance of the arts as a means for social changes. For him, the arts is one of the most effective ways of communicating ideas about social issues to a wide audience. “If you want to get a health message across, you put it in a song,” he says.

For scholars of Africa, this idea sums up the importance of art in their studies. Artists react to the world around them, and comment on the things that are important in their lives. This leads to a whole body of art that deals with a diverse range of social and political issues. As Ogunnaike succinctly puts it, “If you want to learn about Africa, listen to African music.”