Aderemi Adegbite

Aderemi Adegbite

Adegbite in Dakar, Senegal during the Dak'Art Biennale, 2012 by Prof. Awam Amkpa
Born Abdullah Aderemi Adegbite
(1982-02-28) 28 February 1982
Ebute-Metta, Lagos State, Nigeria
Occupation Photographer, Poet , Multimedia Artist, Publisher
Nationality Nigerian
Period 2000–present
Notable works Endless Roads
Notable awards 2012 Global Winner – World Youth Movement for Democracy Photo Contest

Abdullah Aderemi Adegbite also known as Aderemi Adegbite (born 28 February 1982 in Ebute Metta, Lagos, Nigeria) is a Nigerian photographer, poet, multimedia artist and publisher. He lives and works in a suburb of Lagos, Iwaya, a neighboring community to Makoko.

Early life

Aderemi Adegbite born in Ebute-Metta, Lagos State. His parents are from Inisa, Odo-Otin local government area in Osun State, southwestern part of Nigeria. He went to three primary schools between Lagos and Osun states to complete his primary education in the early 1990s due to the political situation in Nigeria then. His love for art and culture grew during his primary education in Osun state.

He discovered photography and moving images as a means of re-examining himself, his community and the society as pretext of his image production. He received his first prize in 2011 with his video work - Ghetto Games - which won "In my backyard" category of the One Minutes Africa by The Oneminutes Foundation. He was not given visa to attend the award ceremony in Egypt due to the political uprising at the time. He has since created series of personal projects and also worked on commissioned projects.

At the tail end of 2005, Aderemi created and curated Poetry Potter, a monthly live performance project between January 2006 and 2010. As a passionate poet himself, he created this platform to serve as grooming ground for young poets, dramatists, dancers and musicians and for four years he produced this project. He ventured into publishing to extend his frontier of literary art promotion and at the end of 2011 he published his first book – a poetry collection: Endless Roads by Ralph Tathagata under Image Books, an imprint of Image & Heritage. In the first quarter of 2013, he released his second poetry publication: Symphony of Becoming by Iquo Eke, and it was on the long list of NLNG Nigerian Prize for Literature same year.

In 2011, he produced his first film, titled Ghettoration,[1] a short documentary film. Ghettoration is a coinage from Ghetto and Gyration. It tells the story of three friends, who live in the same community with the same passion but limited to opportunities at that point in their career. About two years after the film debuted, one of the trio released his first album - Edaoto and the other two are still working on their records in the studio.

Career

Culture Production career

Aderemi started his artistic career through his involvement in the theatre. He trained with the playwright Lekan Balogun as a "stage hand". With the playhouse - Legendaire Theatre, he gained experiences and established himself as a self-taught Cultural Producer and Arts Manager.

As a Cultural Producer/Arts Manager, he has produced and coordinated several arts and literary events which include Poetry Potter, Lagos Poetry Festival, WordSlam, Fashion Revolution and Fashion Revolution Reloaded. He initiated P.A.G.E.S curate it in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos (CCA,Lagos).

Literary career

Aderemi became conscious of his literary craftsmanship in 2004 and he started writing plays, poetry and prose but he distinguished himself in 2005 when he took poetry as his genre of interest. The defunct Daily Times Newspapers[2] was the first platform that gave this young Turks an avenue to express his opinion about politics, life, love, death and rebirth. And as a young poet, he published quite a lot of poems on the online poetry platforms and several anthologies, mostly published by the Forward Press, UK.

Aderemi was invited by the exco of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos Chapter mid-2006 to become the Public Relations Officer under the chairmanship of Folu Agoi for two years, 2006–2008.

Since 2006, Aderemi has contributed to anthologies mostly published by Anchor Books and PoetryNow, both are imprints of Forward Press UK. His other creative writings have appeared in literary magazines such as Poeticdiversity,[3] Blackbiro, Blottermagazine, Oneghanaonevoice,[4] Shortpoem,[5] Anchorbooks, Wisdom of Our Mother,[6] Sentinel Nigeria.[7]

N65

"N65"[8] is the first Solo Exhibition of Aderemi Adegbite. He was tagged Angry Young Man by the director of Goethe-Institut Nigeria,[9] Marc-André Schmachtel in his write-up on the exhibition.

He said that

“ Aderemi Adegbite is an "angry young man". You would not really tell when you first see him. But when you listen to his clear opinions and look at his work you will understand why. Working for many years as a photographer and video artist he has always kept the direct contact with his surrounding, with his environment, the context he is evolving in. Especially the people he is living with have been part of his artistic focus. It is therefore not very surprising to see the topic of his first solo exhibition being entitled "N65". The photographs displayed in the exhibition are a document of what happened to Nigeria early 2012. After a rather sudden removal of oil subsidies the petrol prizes literally over night doubled or tripled which caused some of the biggest mass protests the country had seen in a long time. Unions called on a general strike causing a nationwide standstill and many persons feared violent aggression to break out everywhere. Luckily this violence was minimized and in the end, petrol prices grew only by 50 percent. Daily life went back to normal, even though many people complained about the increase in living costs. But Lagos traffic remained as chaotic as always and buses and public transport continued to travel on their daily routes. Much ado about nothing? ”

Aderemi was involved in the fuel subsidy protest which started on 9 January and ended literally on 16th, 2012 when the Government declared a State of Emergency in all States that support the protest. He was posting photos on Facebook and CNN-iReport[10] with articles daily during the protest which was tagged Occupy Nigeria. He was conscious of his involvement and role as a photographer in the protest and channel his creative resources towards documentation of what could be tagged: "Mini-Neo-Revolution" in the Nigerian politics, in recent years. In his remarks during the opening of "N65" he recounted

“ I woke up to the crude reality of my country on January 1st 2012 – just like millions of other Nigerians. At a time people in other countries of the world were welcoming the New Year with fireworks and fanfares – painting the sky in magnificent colours, Nigerian citizens were busy recounting woes of government policy through manifested in the fuel subsidy removal, announced on the morning of New Year day, 2012. ”

Within three hours after the pronouncement of the removal by the Government, a sachet of Pure Water[11] which sold for N5 became N10, while the bag of 20 sachets rose from N70 to N150. As this is one of the commonly consumed products by the masses, one can only imagine what happened to other consumer products, and especially cost of public transportation!

Jahman Anikulapo,[12] pronounced Aderemi Adegbite an eclectic artiste – in that he is a young fellow whose irrepressible energies and resourcefulness never cease to amaze me; sometimes shocking me in fact. He is a poet, a culture activist/ programmist, a journalist, a civil right activist, filmmaker and lately photographer; and one who is capable of even greater creatively positive mischief(s) than his lean frame suggests.

"N65" opened on 16 June at the Goethe-Institut office in Lagos through 6 July 2012. The solo exhibition – N65 – reopened on 17 September 2012 at the Goethe Institut Dakar, Senegal and closed in December 2012.

References

  1. ↑ "Ghettoration". Africafilms.tv.
  2. ↑ Daily Times Newspapers, Nigeria Archived 25 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑ "Remember by Aderemi Adegbite on Poeticdiversity". Poeticdiversity.org. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  4. ↑ "The Black Pride by Aderemi Adegbite on OneGhanaOneVoice". Oneghanaonevoice.com. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  5. ↑ "Kokumo by Aderemi Adegbite on Shortpoem". Shortpoem.org. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  6. ↑ "Be Proud My Child by Aderemi Adegbite". Familiabooks.com. 5 December 2010. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  7. ↑ "Ode to Kenyan Vagrant by ADEREMI ADEGBITE on Sentinel Nigeria". Sentinelnigeria.org. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  8. ↑ "BusinessDay, Friday, 22 June 2012 by Obidike Okafor". Businessdayonline.com. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  9. ↑ "Goethe Institut Nigeria". Goethe.de. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  10. ↑ "CNN iReport". CNN. 18 November 2009. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  11. ↑ Friday, Olokor (29 March 2012). "Booming 'pure water' business". The PUNCH. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
  12. ↑ "Jahman Anikulapo". Globalartmuseum.de. Retrieved 24 March 2014.

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