Ayo Adewunmi (Ph.D), has taught art and photography at the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu since 1991. He studied art at AhmaduBello University Zaria, Nigeria, where he obtained a BA degree in Industrial Design, in 1991. He has an MFA in Painting and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria. He is currently the Art Director of Life in My City Art Festival. He initiated the Art is Everywhere (AIE) project, a waste-to-art recycling workshop in 2005. Adewunmi has participated in numerous art exhibitions within and outside Nigeria.
For the e-Conference, Ayo will present:
Art Business and the COVID-19 Lockdown Experiences.
In the light of the sudden appearance of the COVID-19 Pandemicwith its attendant lockdown, art organizations and artists sought ways to continue their art business. In Nigeria, Art is Everywhere (AIE) had to substitute its planned waste-to-art workshop scheduled to take place in Abeokuta, April 2020 into“stay-home and create” exercises. The project themed “COVID-19: Tragedy, Trauma, Distress as Creative Resource” is AIE’s way of evaluating the implication of the current lock-down, quarantine, self-isolation, and social distancing on creativity.
Challenges identified with lockdown include anxiety, emotional trauma, financial insecurity. These challenges are all capable of triggering emotional stress and affect mental health.AIE expects artists and art historians to explore their restricted space and conditions to create works that address the challenges of the pandemic, works that are therapeutic, and also document history. This paper intends to consider the creative experience from this AIE project in two parts. First, it discusses my creative explorations within the pandemic-the experience of working with handmade paper and the use of natural colours from food drinks. The second aspect discusses the creative experience of three other selected participants in the AIE project.