We Outside—Ìta L'awà!
On Sunday, I took The Fuji Documentary to Ori Oke, one of the largest open bars in Nigeria, located in Ibadan. More than 2,000 people saw "Mr. Fuji: Barry Wonder" that day. Knowledge went back to one of the places it came from--the street!
I conceived The Fuji Documentary as a class leveler. I imagined it a historical and artistic work that would appeal to a wide range of people's intellectual, aesthetic, and recreational tastes—regardless of social class, education level, location, etc.
From an international documentary film festival to an academic conference, from a college classroom to a town hall meeting, from the leading professors of films and popular culture in Europe and North America to the beer vendors in the lungu of Ibadan, the reach of The Fuji Documentary affirms the power of music and creative knowledge to bridge and blur class.
It is one thing to have an idea, it's another to work it out. To produce a class leveler documentary film, I built stories around transcultural ideas that most people can connect with, images and visuals that tell stories in fascinating ways, and historical rigor that doesn't lose sight of simplicity.
The visual arts, including paintings, must be easy to read, while also inviting the audience to deeper, critical, subversive, and intrinsic readings. The languages, both Yoruba and English, must communicate ideas, succinctly and effectively, but must also leave room for contemplation and alternative or extended coding and decoding.
Location matters in everything, including in the dissemination of ideas. Ori Oke, like most streets, in their real and metaphoric forms, is a powerful site where popular cultures are created, codified, and then transformed into artistic creations that academics and other creatives study. The intellectual conversations that streets like Ori Oke engender come both in their raw/crude forms and in several cases, finished—thus making them important for concretizing ideas that would never be taught in classrooms or found in any book.
Beer parlor and street intellectuals have their own unique ways of consuming knowledge. The audience of the Fuji Documentary on campuses and film festivals are expected to remain silent and not start any conversation with one another until after the screening when a few people will be able to engage the filmmaker.
The reverse is the case on the street. Each table is picking on select issues and personalities in the documentary and having a conversation. Hence, the street audience are more concerned about the debate prompted by the film than on the film itself. They don't have to follow the progression or sequence of the film. As they agree or disagree, they generate new ideas that automatically extend the coast of knowledge.
This is exactly how knowledge creation works on the street. Unlike in formal classrooms where students are fed with incontestable ideas and may not even be allowed to talk or challenge ideas, not only are ideas not cast in stone on the street, all streeters have the power of self-articulation in varying forms. The street doesn't argue to reach a consensus on a debate, for the conversation is more valuable to streeters than a foreclosure on a matter.
We rarely see intellectual conversations in "mundane" things coming from "ordinary" people, or common narratives or "lowly" spaces because we assign intellectualism to certain classes of people and locations or because of our narrow understanding of what passes for an intellectual conversation.
To screen The Fuji Documentary at Ori Oke, I lobbied through the highest-ranked state officials and several interlocutors. Oyo State Commissioner for Culture and Tourism Dr. Wasiu Olatubosun welcomed me to his office, listened to my ideas, and approved my request to screen the documentary on a government property. The staff of the Cultural Center and vendors at Ori Oke gave maximum cooperation. A lot of my friends and fans of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, including (Otunba Olatokunboh Okunola (Oludasile Fuji) and my brilliant video editor Aderibigbe Abiola Provost came out. Modupe o.
Yours Sincerely in History,
Ìṣọ̀lá Alákọlà
-- On Sunday, I took The Fuji Documentary to Ori Oke, one of the largest open bars in Nigeria, located in Ibadan. More than 2,000 people saw "Mr. Fuji: Barry Wonder" that day. Knowledge went back to one of the places it came from--the street!
I conceived The Fuji Documentary as a class leveler. I imagined it a historical and artistic work that would appeal to a wide range of people's intellectual, aesthetic, and recreational tastes—regardless of social class, education level, location, etc.
From an international documentary film festival to an academic conference, from a college classroom to a town hall meeting, from the leading professors of films and popular culture in Europe and North America to the beer vendors in the lungu of Ibadan, the reach of The Fuji Documentary affirms the power of music and creative knowledge to bridge and blur class.
It is one thing to have an idea, it's another to work it out. To produce a class leveler documentary film, I built stories around transcultural ideas that most people can connect with, images and visuals that tell stories in fascinating ways, and historical rigor that doesn't lose sight of simplicity.
The visual arts, including paintings, must be easy to read, while also inviting the audience to deeper, critical, subversive, and intrinsic readings. The languages, both Yoruba and English, must communicate ideas, succinctly and effectively, but must also leave room for contemplation and alternative or extended coding and decoding.
Location matters in everything, including in the dissemination of ideas. Ori Oke, like most streets, in their real and metaphoric forms, is a powerful site where popular cultures are created, codified, and then transformed into artistic creations that academics and other creatives study. The intellectual conversations that streets like Ori Oke engender come both in their raw/crude forms and in several cases, finished—thus making them important for concretizing ideas that would never be taught in classrooms or found in any book.
Beer parlor and street intellectuals have their own unique ways of consuming knowledge. The audience of the Fuji Documentary on campuses and film festivals are expected to remain silent and not start any conversation with one another until after the screening when a few people will be able to engage the filmmaker.
The reverse is the case on the street. Each table is picking on select issues and personalities in the documentary and having a conversation. Hence, the street audience are more concerned about the debate prompted by the film than on the film itself. They don't have to follow the progression or sequence of the film. As they agree or disagree, they generate new ideas that automatically extend the coast of knowledge.
This is exactly how knowledge creation works on the street. Unlike in formal classrooms where students are fed with incontestable ideas and may not even be allowed to talk or challenge ideas, not only are ideas not cast in stone on the street, all streeters have the power of self-articulation in varying forms. The street doesn't argue to reach a consensus on a debate, for the conversation is more valuable to streeters than a foreclosure on a matter.
We rarely see intellectual conversations in "mundane" things coming from "ordinary" people, or common narratives or "lowly" spaces because we assign intellectualism to certain classes of people and locations or because of our narrow understanding of what passes for an intellectual conversation.
To screen The Fuji Documentary at Ori Oke, I lobbied through the highest-ranked state officials and several interlocutors. Oyo State Commissioner for Culture and Tourism Dr. Wasiu Olatubosun welcomed me to his office, listened to my ideas, and approved my request to screen the documentary on a government property. The staff of the Cultural Center and vendors at Ori Oke gave maximum cooperation. A lot of my friends and fans of Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, including (Otunba Olatokunboh Okunola (Oludasile Fuji) and my brilliant video editor Aderibigbe Abiola Provost came out. Modupe o.
Yours Sincerely in History,
Ìṣọ̀lá Alákọlà
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