For the exhibition ‘Reverberações – Reflecting The African Impression Of Memory’, contemporary artist Mudi Yahaya uses photography as a means of artistic research. With it, he traces the question of how African societies, which were at the centre of the transatlantic slave trade, were, directly and indirectly, influenced over the centuries in ways that affected how these societies organised themselves spiritually, socially, culturally and philosophically.
Mallam Mudi Yahaya, Berlin 2022 © Stefanie Marcus
The artistic research reveals how the consequences of Slavery still permeate through the African diasporas’ global experience, even in instances where there have been conscious and intentional conspiracies to break and disrupt ties with an African past and heritage. Many West Africans who were forcibly captured in Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and Senegal ended up in Brazil. There are remarkable traces in Brazil of a syncretic version of the culture and traditions of these forcibly captured peoples who were transported across the ocean to Brazil.
Similarly, a hybridised Afro-Brazilian culture crossed the ocean back to West Africa due to the Malê Muslim slave revolt in January 1835,
which resulted in the return of freed people of West African descent back to their original societies. This cultural communication between
West Africa and Brazil have lasted and lasted to this day, although now Slavery has metamorphosised and camouflaged its identity within migration and through structural racism with far-reaching consequences that have deep relationships and associations with violence, corruption and even climate change.
Mudi Yahaya, one of Nigeria’s leading artists, explores interpretations of hybrid African identities in their different visual dialects, currencies and vocabularies. For ‘Reverberações – Reflecting The African Impression Of Memory’, he worked extensively with his photographic archive, which was created over more than two decades during his extensive travels through all Nigeria and West Africa regions. Combined with his extensive knowledge, the exhibition gives us a deep insight into the complexity of African global cultures.
With ‘Reverberações – Reflecting The African Impression Of Memory’, the MUNCAB – Museu da Cultura Afro-Brasileira, Salvador, Bahia is presenting works by Mudi Yahaya in Brazil for the first time. The exhibition was curated by Berlin-based curators and artists Gisela Kayser, Suely Torres and Mireya Palmeira.
The exhibition will be on view form the 21st of March until the 21st of June, 2024. For more information, please visit MUNCAB – National Museum of Afro-Brazilian Culture.
