ABSTRACT:
There are still inadequate methods of imparting knowledge of history and culture to African youths who are in dire need of intellectual guide in order to be fully rooted in their original and indigenous culture. This noticeable gap is expanding fast and African youths may not be familiar with what is their own in terms of robust and original cultural practices Africa is endowed with. In view of the above point, visual art as a discipline has a lot to offer in order to permanently stick the history of these rich cultural practices to the memories of African youth. Therefore, the focus of this paper is to propose the introduction of visual creations and visual history into the curriculum of schools and colleges in Africa where most culture-related subjects taught in these institutions would have the effects of visual art where visual illustrations are properly done to tell history that would be difficult to forget. The methods of achieving this would be highlighted in this paper and easier ways of adopting the methods by related subjects in the syllabus would also be discussed. It is the belief of this paper that if the articulated positions are properly implemented by the relevant authorities, these can be easily adopted by the African Diaspora.
Introduction
Culture is a very wide concept which has been variously used by scholars depending on the context in which it is used. Culture has been used either as indigenous or foreign. It has also been described as advanced, primitive or civilized. Some can be said to be “cultured” or “uncultured”. Culture can generally be used to educate or teach a society especially its youth. It calls for concern when a particular society leaves its rich indigenous culture for foreign culture under the guise of being “civilized”. A culture teaches either informally or formally the history of a particular society to its citizen. It is built into every aspect of citizens' lives consciously so that it can become part of them. There is culture of education, language, eating, dressing, behaviour, thought process, dance and so many others.
For clearer understanding of this topic, it would be very appropriate to define certain key terms such as culture, visual arts, visual literacy, visual thinking, visual learning, visual communication, history.
The definition of culture in Cultural Policy for Nigeria by Federal Government of Nigeria-FGN (1988) would be adopted here. It defines Culture as:
The totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenges of living in their environment which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms and modes of organisation, thus distinguishing a people from their neighbours. It comprises material, institutional, philosophical and creative aspects. The material aspect of culture has to do with artifacts, in its broadest form that includes tools, clothing, food, medicine, utensils, housing etc while the institutional aspect deals with the political, social, legal and economic structures erected to help achieve material and spiritual objectives. The philosophical aspect of culture is concerned with ideas, beliefs and values as against the creative aspect which concerns a people's literature be it oral or written as well as their visual and performing arts which are normally moulded by, as well as help to mould other aspect of culture. (FGN, 1988).
While the above definition is very comprehensive and well encompassing in all aspect of people's lives, the creative aspect which is visual art would be focused later on in this discussion.
Visual Art: This is a strong aspect of culture. It has been defined by various scholars. It is hereby defined as a creation or expression of what are beautiful, especially in visual forms. It is also creation of new idea in visual form. It is a visual science. It is a universal language that is aesthetic, utilitarian, imaginative and creative. It is a power of doing things, including skills, trade, crafts or acquired expertise. It is the technical study, creation and application of things in forms, symbols, contexts, texture, colour etc. (Azeez, 2001). Visual art involves the under stated.
Visual literacy is the overall discipline –general awareness related to the use of visuals from the most rudimentary.
Visual thinking is the important contribution of visuals to the cognitive process.
Visual learning is the acquisition, understanding and retention of data through visuals.
Visual communication is the use of visual thinking and visual learning to create documents that convey information using visual cues, graphics, and elements of document design to promote access, understanding, and action.
History: is defined here as the record of past events and activities articulated in the present time. It can be orally, written and visually presented.
Africans: These are black people that have their origin with African region.
Africans in the Diaspora: Blacks and African descendants living outside the African continent.
Why teach History and Culture in African and Diaspora Schools ?
It is an established fact that Africans are the most vulnerable when it comes to the erosion of culture. African culture has been seriously eroded, denigrated especially by the colonizers and western powers (Europe and America ). They have been able to do this via imposition of religion and political system, neo-colonization, economic dependence of most African states to the West. A country that controls its own economic system would have its culture intact to a large extent. The moment a nation state allows it economic system to be dictated from outside, then it has lost grip of its own culture and cultural practices. It is not what you want, but what they want for you. Owing to over-dependence on the West, African history was negatively re-written and documented to give superiority to the “first writers” who interpreted what African history ought to be and not what it is. African history was done in such a way to give the impression that it did not have history inspite of the world history that started from Egypt–Africa. To buttress this type of Western bias against Africa, the current French President, Sarkozy, was reported in the news in July, 2008 to have said in Dakar - Senegal that Africans are ahistorical. If a president of France where Africans have made tremendous contributions to her culture including sport could say that negative thing about Africa , what else do we expect from other Western countries that have more disdain for it? In October 2006, this writer was in Paris and paid a visit to a tourist attraction centre “Musee du quai Branly” (Museum of Contemporary Art) located in Muriel Sessan, Paris, it is amazing to see special sections of the Museum devoted to African visual arts. One doubts if one can find a large collections of African art and artifacts in any single location in Africa . The question is: were all these art works and artifacts purchased, donated, captured or stolen? It is very ironical for a president of a country like France to paint Africa in that negative light of not being part of world history. Is it not ironical that 90% of French national soccer team is dominated by the same vilified Africans? In 1897, the Europeans carted away invaluable art works and artifacts from the then Benin Empire, in Nigeria . Most of these art works are scattered all over Europe and America decorating their museums and private homes where in many cases Africans visiting these countries queue up to view them. What an irony of history! See Plate 1, Benin Ivory head still in British Museum (A symbol of FESTAC '77), and Plate 2, (16 th century Benin Bronze plaque).
Although in recent times African historians and art historians have tried to document some of this invaluable heritage of Africans, our youths are still ignorant of the existence of these assets. Lack of proper documentation or teaching of African history and culture in African schools has created a problem of near elimination form the world history. Another problem is over-dependence on Western culture at the expense of African culture. There is also a noticeable problem of not speaking common language(s) which has made African not to appreciate their own. There is also the teaching of Western curriculum in most schools in Africa with little content from African culture incorporated into the curriculum. In support of this, Nascimanto (1986) as cited in Mohammed (1991) pointed out that “in Brazil there is no teaching of African history and the history of Africans outside the continent at any significant level of education; elementary, secondary or superior (higher), when any kind of teaching of such subjects occurs, it does so in the vein of perpetuating neo-colonialist concepts towards Africa and the African people”. One can boldly say that this pathetic situation is still prevalent in many African schools. The reason is not far fetched. There are even few teachers who understand their own history talk less of teaching it to innocent school children who should have been ideologically schooled and taught to have a grasp of their history and digest it outright. Another problem of history in Africa is that of mass media not used for the advantage of teaching the populace the essence of their being as usually expressed in their culture. In contrast, Africa is perceived abroad in a negative manner using the power Western media to carry out this even across to Africa . In line with the above identified problem, Balogun 1986 as cited in Mohammed 1991 stated that:
The key factor about the manner in which Nigeria is perceived outside our shores is ignorance. It is altogether surprising how little people actually know about Nigeria in other African countries. In most cases of course, they heard certain things about Nigeria , but in general what they have heard range from lurid tales about armed robbery and corruption to exaggerated stories about the Nigerian way of life.
While it is true that there were cases of corruption and armed robbery in Nigeria , Nigeria still remains one of the most accommodating and culturally endowed countries in the world. There are examples of traditional art forms e.g. Nok Art of 500 B.C see Plate 3; Neo- traditionalist work of Lamidi Fakeye, see Plate 4, and contemporary art forms of Bruce Onobrakpeya, see Plate 5, Kunle Filani of Ona Movement, see Plate 6, Obiora Udechukwu of Uli Movement, see Plate 7 and Ben Enwonwu's painting, see plate 8, and many others too numerous to mention here.
African art teachers and historians need to teach African history and culture
• So that the rich black culture would not be wiped out by the powerful West with their propaganda machineries.
• So that she can reposition the Black people of the world in the comity of rich culture of the world.
• In order to have a knowledge and understand her politics and the affairs of states in the past.
• To be able to record Africa's past in politics, literature law, art, architecture, social institutions, religion, economy, philosophy, science, technology and other fields of human endeavour.
• To be able to mould and stabilize society by holding up the past as a mirror for the present and future.
• To use it as an opportunity to influence, make or mar a society. According to Ukpabi (1991) “this capacity for doing harm to societies is best illustrated by the manner in which the European powers used history as the tool of imperialism in Africa .
• To rebuild contemporary African societies on solid foundations and to obliterate those distortions of the past created to serve imperialist ends.
Ukpabi vividly captured this when he said that “indeed it has come to be recognized that one of the worst things that could happen to a people is for their history to be written by unsympathetic foreigners. One cannot but totally agree with him in this regard.
Visual Art, Vehicle for Teaching History and Culture in Schools
There is no gainsaying the fact that the current art syllabus being operated in secondary schools in Nigeria is western-culture oriented in content and operation. Most teachers teaching art as a subject in these schools cannot do otherwise because of the specification of the syllabus. These teachers were also trained to understand the western system of education and type of art in content, form and materials. The end result is learning more about foreign art forms than indigenous art forms. (Azeez, 2005). As observed by (Oyelola, 1998) and Ojie (2001), studies carried out on African art appeared that the cultural roles of African art forms were reasonably uncovered, as there has always been a quest for works with representation of some aspects of traditional culture.
But if there is anything the West cannot deny of originating from Africa , it is her ubiquitous art works and artifacts present all over them. As Ochigbo (2008) puts it “ African art today is either misrepresented or misunderstood as lacking in identity”. But there is unique identity in African art. In order to diminish their importance, the Europeans called the art works different and funny names such as “curio objects”, “primitive art”, “objects of idols”, “negritude art”, “Black art” etc. But the artworks cannot be denied being African, because they are visually there representing African identity. African arts have also influenced the modern European Art as has been appropriated in Cubism by Picasso as can be found in his “ Les Demoiselles d'Avignon ” painted in 1907. See Plate 9.
Since art is physical, feasible, tangible and visual, it is a strong vehicle or means of documenting African history and culture e.g. wood carvings, bronze casting, woven textiles, calabash decorations, pottery works, leather works etc have been used to document African life patterns, trade and commerce, politics, religion etc. See Plates 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 & 15. In Africa these records are present among different tribes in Africa that include Yoruba, Benin, Ashanti, Bamileke, Mossi, Senufo, Baule, Bambara, Dogon, Mende, Baluba, Kissi, the Zulu, etc. There were records of cave paintings in many locations in Africa . Body/Shrine paintings abound everywhere in Africa . It is also the responsibility of the art teacher in primary, secondary or tertiary institutions to discuss the content of such art forms to his pupils or students in order for them to understand not only the aesthetic of it but also the utilitarian, religious and spiritual essence of such art.
Why Use Visual Art to Teach History and Culture?
• Because a very important part of our cognitive process is visual, we learn culture information quicker, understand information more thoroughly and retain information longer if it is presented in visual and texts.
• Integrating visuals into learning culture makes students to learn local cultural practices more efficiently by distinguishing them from foreign ones.
• Since we live in a visual culture and environment we owe it to our students to teach them how to create and analyse visually dynamic culture and history they would face in everyday situation. To study only verbal discourse without visuals is to study a minute portion of our history and culture that affect us daily.
Strategies of Pedagogy to be adopted
In order to sustain the interest of pupils and students in the study of African history and culture, effort must be made to make the teaching of Cultural and Creative Arts compulsory at the primary and junior secondary school levels which must include visual culture, visual expression, visual language and communication. There must be general need for a more practical approach to teaching of culture with focus on visual culture. The strategies should include the following:
• Cultural history told in a particular lesson must be accompanied with visual images available to buttress the reality of such history, e.g. Argungu festival Kebbi State , Nigeria , Osun festival in Osun State , Nigeria , Durbar festival in Minna , Niger State, Nigeria , see plate 11.
• Pupils and students should be encouraged in their drawing classes to interpret an art work shown or cultural history told in their own visual expression.
• There should be conscious use of visual information or real materials and audio-visual materials stored in VCD, DVD or films as media of communication.
• Culture-related story telling should be supported with visual images in a lesson.
• Pupils/students should be encouraged to visit some art centres where indigenous weaving skills, tie and dye, bronze casting, wood carving etc are done, and the practitioners are made to explain or teach them cultural skills involved.
• Teachers and students should be encouraged to visit landmarks where historical monuments of past activities and of icons in the society have been erected and the history behind the monument is clearly explained.
• There should be attempts to show the relationship between visual images used in traditional religion and social functions.
• Pupils and students should be made to attend public cultural lectures where cultural icons and figures are made speakers with emphasis on students' dress codes when participating in such lectures.
• Another method is where cultural activities organised by Blacks in Diaspora are recorded into DVDs, VCDs, films etc and circulated to schools in large quantities to be viewed during an art, music, drama or history classes.
• Efforts should be made to encourage art competitions and exhibitions among the students with thematic content such as “cultural rejuvenation”, “our culture our soul”. Others can be aesthetic and cultural embellishment of public buildings where African designs, symbols, patterns and motifs are inculcated. Organisations like CBAAC are already doing this.
• There should be encouragement of students' competitions in product packaging for the purpose of promoting African indigenous images and forms. E.g. packaging can be done for products depicting decorated calabash, pots, tortoise, cowries etc.
• Students need to be encouraged to participate in fashion shows that promote aso-oke, adire, Akwete, adinkra, kente as against the practice where they parade in semi-nude without cultural textiles.
• Students should also be motivated to attend inter cultural/international art exhibitions. The schools that are able to attend such events can make available tapes, DVD or VCD recorded of such exhibitions for others to copy and view. For example, FESTAC '77 Exhibition, Art Expo 2008 Exhibition, ARESUVA 2008 Art Exhibition, etc. could be produced and mass circulate to various schools as visual teaching materials.
• Traditional African games like Ayo can be carved by the students themselves or purchased for the purpose of teaching students how to play the games.
• Cultural and Creative Art teachers and their pupils and visual art teachers and their students should be encouraged to visit big Cultural Festivals such as Osun Osogbo, Argungu Festival, Durbar Festival etc.
• There should be exchange of students and lecturers between African schools and Africans in the Diaspora where cultural experiences can be shared.
• There should be direct linkage between art institutions and cultural institutions such as CBAAC (Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization), NGA (National Gallery of Arts), NCAC (National Council for Arts and Culture), NCMM (National Commission for Museum and Monument), National Theatre and such other institutions in the Diaspora where relevant visual and cultural researches are encouraged for the purpose of promoting and understanding cultural history in schools. Outcomes of such researches can be published in book form with enough visual images included in the content.
• Scholarships should be made available by government by students who have developed keen interest in documenting identified area of culture.
• International agencies such as UNESCO should make grants available for African students for the purpose of researching and documenting more on their visual culture.
Conclusion
It is the belief of this writer that in achieving all the aforementioned strategies of using visual arts as potent means of teaching history and culture in African and Diaspora's schools, there are bound to be obstacles or problems such as non availability of funds to finance the strategies, lack of enough ideologically clear and culturally educated teachers or personnel, non reflection of deep rooted African thought and culture in curriculum content in our schools etc. But they are all surmountable if conscious efforts are applied to change our slipping away historical and rich cultural heritage and use the abundant but not fully tapped human resources African is endowed with. While we teach our pupils and students how to draw, paint, sculpt and design, we should conscious inculcate in them the cultural pride that Africa is the root of world civilization and is also blessed with richer culture that is an envy of powerful nations of the world.
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