Ruga Naturii

ART WORKSHOP WITH CHILDREN FROM IMMUNA VILLAGE

Obosum – Spiritual Reasearch in Immuna

In Immuna we have rediscovered, through the spirituality of the landscape and people’s ancient beliefs in gods or “Obosom”, a preserved natural way to go back to our roots, to reconnect with nature and divinity. The people used to feel connected with their environment by worshiping gods that live in trees, rocks, water and houses. Nowadays, deforestation and sand­mining driven by economic forces, are endangering Immuna’s natural environment, the lagoon, the sacred mangroves, as people’s belief in gods and spiritual places is fading. That brings us to the question if Gods are are forgotten? Maybe.

Focusing on 7 out of 77 gods and spiritual places that exists in Immuna through the media of drawing, I implemented into the research three different layers of information and interpretation: my personal approach, children’s innocent perspective and elders knowledge transmitted through incantations and dance by the fetish priestess of the village. These sacred places (Obosum Bradam, Tongo, Obo­da­Obodo, Immuna, Bawar, Ekyinaba, Acirum). Path to understanding the relationship between magic and popular religion is through the concept of syncretism, which basically means the blending or amalgamation of different religious traditions within a population. The dominant religion might denounce the result of the processs as magic or superstition. But used sensitively it can also be applied the way in which people appropriate and take control of theologies and cultural beliefs imposed upon them, adapting them to suit their own distinctive needs. In the context of magic then, the continued resort to older religious pratices is not a survival but an adaptation. The people using such practices consider them valid within their conception of what is acceptable to their faith.

Similar syncretic belief systems have been identified, such as those born on the interplay between Islam and indigenous religions in West Africa, more specifically in Immuna, where this religious mixt is very much present, how magic is inextricably intertwined with the development of religion as part of the process. Connection with the religion of children I worked with as muslims. They didn’t believe in gods, but where aware of the power of the obosom, for example they didn’t want to get closer to the garden in front of the obosom Bradam. In any kind of evolvement, natural or spiritual, at the beginning we have simple shapes and just after the more complex ones. Because of that, in the primitive art of any kind, shapes of any kind as well as the laws that governs them, are easier to aknowledge than forms and laws of art of an evolved culture. What is primitive is natural, so normally, initially is very intuitive and still unmodified by the superior stages of the evolution of art.

The most simple shapes from the beginning of art, appeared spontaneously, are those art shapes which they have no influences yet, such as absolute primitivism. One of the purest manifestation of the absolute primitivism is infantile art. Children which were not influenced yet by the evolved art or they haven’t met the drawing problems imposed by school or family.

Understanding child’s art is mandatory to understand any kind of primitive art, especially the exotic art. For Immuna’s cultural platform, we should understand each spiritual and cultural spaces through drawing and collection of stories and incantation, research based on african theology belief system and the field of influence of each obosom, creating a personal drawing methodology and understanding the art of children by reinterpretating their intentions in connection with their theological beliefs.