The Institute of African Studies (IAS), University of Ibadan (UI), came alive once again on Thursday, June 19, 2025, as it hosted a landmark exhibition titled, “Art, Spirit & Power in Yoruba Woodcarving”. Curated with characteristic brilliance, the exhibition explored the deep spirituality and enduring artistic ingenuity of Yoruba woodcarvings. The chairman’s speech delivered by the renowned poet and scholar, Professor Niyi Osundare, was itself a lyrical celebration of Africa’s cultural legacy.
With reference to Oro bullroarers, Opo Mulero (home posts), Odo Sango ritual objects, Opo Ifa (divination trays), and ritual drums, the exhibition captured the multiplicity of meaning, motion, and memory encoded in wood, a medium transformed by Yoruba hands into vessels of sacred force.
However, the curator, Professor Ohioma Pogoson, who paid a glowing tribute to IFRA-Nigeria for supporting the Institute financially, seized the moment to straighten up a long claim of Osundare that Pogoson is his landlord, while he is Pogoson’s tenant. Pogoson revealed that 26 years ago when he bought his piece of land in Ibadan, Osundare’s edifice was already a cynosure of both the inhabitants and passerby. He said, “26 years ago, I bought a piece of land here in Ibadan. When I bought my land, a house was already standing and a passerby said, this house belongs to Niyi Osundare. Afterwards, I managed to complete my house and become a tenant to Niyi Osundare. This matter regarding landlord-tenant status of Osundare-Pogoson is hereby completely settled today.”
Pogoson also urged the students of the Institute to be involved in practical, exhibition and curation, noting that very soon, the Institute would submit a proposal to the institution’s authority to include exhibition in the institute’s syllabus.
Stressing that exhibition is an expensive venture, he enjoined the university authority to be financially involved in the institute’s exhibition.
Speaking, Osundare, who told his audience that there is no limit to education and knowledge acquisition, declared in a poetic flourish that anchored his speech in reverence and imagination, “the tree boasts its honour to be mother of such eternal wonders.”
Enjoining academic to be relevant outside their universities’ environment, he explained that narrow things are done in ones university, hence academics should be involved in academic activities outside their universities.
Noting that Nigeria and its universities are extremely far from where they should be, he berated the government and institutions’ authorities for poorly managing Nigerian trees, considering it as a disservice for hueing unmatured trees.
Also urging Nigerians to live above ethnicity, he established that a country or groups of people who do not understand their history, know where they are coming from or know their identity, could not take their destinies in their hands.
Osundare praised IAS as a host, more importantly, as a hub of cultural and epistemological centrality, described as ‘our own renaissance hub.”
The poet reflected on his decade-long relationship with the Institute, tracing his connection from a student holiday job in 1971 to the present day, according to him, IAS has emerged as a vibrant space where African agency and ways of knowing are preserved and propagated.
He said the woodcarving exhibition has joined a rich lineup of recent presentations including Twenti Teree showcase and the thought-provoking Numismatic exhibition.
He recalled receiving a poster of the latter and responding with philosophical admiration; “Valuable Art redefines, even complicates, the currency of money by permanence-ing the tenure of its worth…”
Osundare pointed out that it was the spiritual dimension of the current exhibition that commanded the day’s reflections.
He dwelled on the concept of “animist realism”, a provocative phrase used by IAS Director, Professor Sola Olorunyomi, who noted that the exhibition was a product of hard work and resources, to capture the tension and vitality in African art, one that is animated by spirit yet grounded in physical form.
Reclaiming the term “animism’, once used by colonial anthropologists to diminish African traditional religion, Osundare and the exhibition contributors redefined it as a dynamic, living force embedded in carved object.
He argued, these are not mere artistic artefacts, but Living History,” shaped by ‘the Muse behind their music” and ‘the life, force that propels their spirituality.
Quoting Professor Ohioma Pogoson, Osundare affirmed that African art “serve the spirit and the very essence of its makers, its community, and patrons”
He stressed this statement resonated with the exhibition’s central thesis; Yoruba woodcarving is not about art for art’s sake adding, it is an embodiment of philosophical thought, religious feeling, and existential function.
According to him, the displayed carvings did more than delight the eye, they spoke and offered semiotic reading and protean interpretations, and inviting viewers into a sacred dialogue. He also pointed out, each drum, tray, and post whispered with ancestral memory and communal power.
The literary scholar further noted that during a previous exhibition, in the company of scholar and humourist, Professor Festus Adesanoye, a communication expert, how ‘the voices and visions of the carvings’ come alive in the presence of engaged, joyful minds, stressing that the atmosphere at the IAS was similarly electric, charged with curiosity, respect, and the feeling that art is life.
Osundare stated that the event was more than an exhibition, it was a celebration of a worldview, a renewal of cultural pride, and a reminder that African knowledge systems have always been embodied, textured, and spiritually potent.
The literary icon concluded by affirming that Yoruba woodcarving is not a relic of the past but a living archive of spirit, art, and African power.
During interaction, respecting culture and religious harmony were advocated for.
so interesting, thank you.