Uba Washington speaks on Indigenous Art Festival ‘360, Asaba

The maiden edition of Indigenous Art Festival ‘360, Asaba which ends tomorrow, September 29, 2024 at the Indigenous Cultural Centre, Delta State Film Village, Anwai, Asaba, is steeped in indigenous art practices, with the ambience reminiscence of a typical African village, complete with mud and thatched buildings. Traditional textile weaving of akwa ocha (white cloth) famous among Anioma people of Delta North, painting, poetry performance and adire cloth weaving by Evelyn D’Poet Osagie, Soibifaa Dokubo and many more exciting programmes animate the festival curated by UBA Chukwuemeka Washington who spoke on the theme ‘Ecosystem Sustainability through Indigenous Knowledge and Practices’ that he has recreates in the centre.

What inspires Indigenous Art Festival ‘360, Asaba, organized by the Indigenous Cultural Centre?
According to Louis Riel: ‘My people will sleep for 100 years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who will give them their spirit back.” Indigenous Cultural Center is a facility for the arts, and cultural expression. It’s an integral part of Delta State Film Village, Asaba.

Indigenous Art is a lot more central to an indigenous person because it involves all aspects of their lives and the considered sacred to the certain identity or background it has come from. It remains firmly embedded in our social life – not as a luxury nor as a tool of refinement or class mobility, but as an essential way to secure a sense of personhood, and in documenting, celebrating, and critiquing social conditions and realities.

The western culture has tremendously impacted on African traditional society in positive and negative dimensions. What is your take on its effect on Africa’s value system?

It has given rise to acculturation and improved on the value system in the African society. Obviously, culture is simply the way of life of any given people that is transmittable from one generation to another. It incorporates issues that bother on technological development, language, marriage, mode of dressing, arts and craft, food, festivity, religion, social life, education and the political system of the people.

Let me introduce a word that’s fondly used in this context — “cultural globalization” which in my view gives way for the infiltration of foreign cultures into African culture, norms, values, and alteration of African social structure. “Culture is the social construction, articulation and reception of meaning”. Cultural globalization has created unparalleled inequity throughout Africa, affected the behaviour of people in numerous ways, and forced many people to assume a lifestyle of self interest, selfishness, individualism and made people to develop a psychopathic devotion and appetite for foreign films, foreign goods, foods, foreign way of life, foreign music, attitude and behavior which has always been foreign to African community

What are the consequences of Africa losing her history?

in my take here, the consequences are huge if that happens. Though the chances of such happening is very slim, expecialy at this internet age which I owe so much credit to in the reawakening of the Africa cultural spirit in different social media portals; connecting people and creating confidence among those Africans that have long lost the African cultural dignity. It has equally helped in exposing some flaws in the highly held western culture through ease of information availability to dictate the fact from false.

What are the Challenges of recreating the African cultural and environmental identity and setting?

The difficulty faced in most cases is the challenge of recreating our cultural settings which most of the materials are going extinct, including human capital (workforce) and most times very expressive when you’re lucky to find anything

What is the purpose of the Indigenous Cultural Centre

What we’re doing here is the preservation, promotion and protection of both the tangible and Intangible art; it’s part of the roadmap out of the woods. They’re more awakening of the importance and values of our cultural heritage within the continent and in diaspora also in this 21st century.

Festival Director, Uba Washington

What is indigenous knowledge and why does it matter?
Never before has humanity faced the confluence of crises we face. And never before has there been such a driving need to expand and diversify the kinds of evidence and knowledge we rely upon to make critical decisions to address them.

Had our traditional cultural practices and ceremony not been abandoned and had our information keepers been listened to over the centuries, we probably would not find ourselves in the position we are today – with the losses, extinction and contamination we face in our global community. This is a valuable component of being able to face not only climate change but the preservation and protection of all of our resources. Some of us are indigenous, from communities and cultures deeply rooted in the natural world. Others strive to understand both the power and limits of western scientific evidence alone and advance more inclusive evidence-based mechanism

Collectively, we have seen evidence of success when knowledge systems are brought together. It is important because respectful inclusion of indigenous knowledge systems at all levels with the fight against climate change are based on a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of the world. After all, developing wise policies, effective and equitable programmes to improve the lives of all humans and the health of the planet are the most important tasks of humanity.

What is indigenous knowledge?
Indigenous knowledge – also referred to as traditional knowledge or traditional ecological knowledge – is a body of observations, oral and written knowledge, innovations, practices, and beliefs that promote sustainability and the responsible stewardship of cultural and natural resources through relationships between humans and their landscapes. Indigenous knowledge cannot be separated from the people inextricably connected to that knowledge. It applies to phenomena across biological, physical, social, cultural, and spiritual systems.

Indigenous peoples have developed their knowledge systems over millennia, and continue to do so based on evidence acquired through direct contact with the environment, long-term experiences, extensive observations, lessons, and skills.

This familial intimacy with nature enables the ability to detect often subtle, micro-changes and to base decisions on deep understanding of patterns and processes of change in the natural world of which people are a part. The information and summative historical and cultural ecology contained within indigenous languages, practices, values, places, names, songs, and stories hold data and knowledge that are relevant today.

For example, it is estimated that currently at the global scale, indigenous peoples – and long-standing, place-based communities – manage over 24% of land, which contains 40% of all ecologically intact landscapes and protected areas left on the planet, and a staggering 80% of the world’s biodiversity. In short, evidence suggests that the most intact ecosystems on the planet rest in the hands of people who have remained close to nature. And indigenous knowledge isn’t just applicable to land and water use; it is relevant to all human systems.

Why Now? When more forms of evidence are considered, better decision-making results. Recognition and inclusion of indigenous knowledge for climate action benefits everyone. Tribes and indigenous peoples have long requested that indigenous knowledge be consistently and meaningfully included in the fight against climate change.

Recognizing the importance of indigenous knowledge is part of a necessary process of recognizing history and rectifying relationships. When people are part of the solution, they invest in it.

UNESCO data indicates that if no efforts are made to conserve them, half of the languages currently spoken today will be extinct by the end of the 21st century. Of the world’s 6,000 languages, an estimated 2,000 are in Africa. In the continent, English and French still dominate, as a remnant of colonization. What do you say to this?

A language can, unfortunately, become endangered relatively easily. It happens when fewer and fewer people speak it, and especially when children stop learning it as their dominant language. Many people confuse dead languages with extinct languages. A dead language is still used or studied in some contexts. Extinct languages, on the other hand, are no longer spoken or used for any purpose. Many extinct languages are totally lost to history, with only the record of the language name itself remaining. Why languages die. There are many reasons why languages die. The reasons are often political, economic or cultural in nature. Speakers of a minority language may, for example, decide that it is better for their children’s future to teach them a language that is tied to economic success.

Language death can happen gradually when a community of speakers acquires a second language, which then slowly becomes used in place of the original or “heritage” language. This process happens over generations, as parents eventually stop teaching their children the heritage language, and then it dies as they do.