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Nigeria: Osaru Obaseki fuses past and future in bronze
DW (English)
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Benin in Nigeria is known for its bronze sculptures, and she is the only woman who has made it her mission to bring these famous works of art into the present day.
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00:00
in a world where art constantly evolves how do you honor the past while shaping the future let's
00:08
find out how osaru obaseki preserves the nigerian bronze making art in modern times i'm more of an
00:15
experimental artist and a lot of my work is based off of my medium and materiality the way i use
00:23
materials i started experimenting with clay started experimenting with making sculptures
00:28
and which other medium to you know make those sculptures in if not bronze the technique of
00:34
casting bronze using the lost wax technique is not traditionally practiced by women in benin and
00:40
osaru obaseki has thus created a niche for herself in the contemporary art scene the artist who was
00:47
born in edo state consciously fuses the old with the modern in her works and explores themes such as
00:53
identity heritage and social change historically like um benin women weren't allowed to cast bronze
01:02
from like um the 13 14 15 16th century in benin currently i think i'm one of the young female
01:09
creatives who's working in bronze i am on a residency program for a couple of weeks to interrogate with
01:20
the benin kingdom collections back at the museum and create a contemporary outlook so i'm currently using
01:28
the lux was process of bronze casting to create my work here the bronze casting technique in benin uses
01:35
sand which for osaru is a special feature of the ancient process after making some traditional
01:42
sculptures she began to experiment and introduced acrylic to the process the process of bronze casting
01:48
is actually very tedious because you go through a lot of processes before getting to like your finished bronze cast
01:58
and first of all modeling with clay to create your design then you go in with your silicon which is
02:09
supposed to take the imprint of the design you've created and then with the silicon you create a mold which
02:16
you're supposed to take your second core print with the wax that's when you do your your third pouring
02:23
with your pop so as contemporary artists or i as a contemporary artist i use the pop as um as a mode
02:34
and traditionally the igum bronze casters use same red earth as um taking their mode and core for the
02:42
wax you could use bee wax or candle wax depends on how your detailing the kind of detailing you want on
02:48
your work then for glass i think my first contact with using glass was during my residency in venice in
02:56
italy so that was the very first time i found that that you can actually cast glass when i came in contact
03:03
with the medium glass i wanted to experiment as somebody who likes experimenting a lot
03:08
um and i already had models already on ground so i was like okay i could as well just cast them in
03:16
glass and that is how i went into glass casting as well osaru's aim was never to recreate the bini
03:23
bronzes but rather to find out how heritage shapes contemporary african identity which is why the lengthy
03:30
traditional process is an indispensable part of her work in terms of having like creative blocks i think that
03:37
is very normal and regular and it's always there for artists sometimes you want to get clay the clay is
03:46
not usually readily available and that also extends to materials like bronze as well sometimes even the
03:56
price of bronze has caracted over time and sometimes when you need bronze to work you they're not available
04:04
although osaru's sculptures and paintings appear modern they carry a hint of retrospective she achieves
04:11
this impression for example through the stylization of the faces to what extent does her work thus
04:18
challenge misconceptions about african art preserving african heritage through bronze casting and even through
04:27
my sand paintings they are both quite important to me because of posterity's sake for the people who are
04:38
going to come after us for people who be in my shoes in the future to wanting to have a sense of identity and
04:48
wanting to find themselves and going back to their roots they should have materials they can go back to in
04:54
understanding who they are so that's why it's quite important this is one of my bronze pieces
05:00
this is also part of the wall series because you can see the wall lines around the coats he's wearing
05:08
so biblically when you hear about the coat of many colors i use that as an inspiration to create this
05:15
piece so this is called the coat of many lines referring to the binning walls the idea of transformation
05:21
is at the heart of osaru's work her sculptures often depict fragmented forms that symbolize
05:28
the ruptures caused by colonialism social change and identity struggles but there is also a sense of
05:35
healing in her work a piecing together of the broken a reinterpretation of wholeness
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