Jamaican stories told with metals

Alao Luqman is a Nigerian artisan and cultural diplomat who has been teaching a variety of art, including ‘chasing and repoussé ’, to Jamaicans since 2017. Chasing and repoussé is a centuries-old technique of etching images and objects in metals and other materials to tell stories.

Currently, Luqman is exhibiting over 50 pieces of his own work inside the foyer of the regional headquarters of The University of the West Indies, Mona.

Called ‘Stories with Metals’ and hosted by the Nigerian High Commission, in collaboration with the Jamaica Business Development Corporation, the show is “celebrating the rich cultural heritage between Jamaica and Nigeria”.

Luqman comes from the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, Benin and Togo, and uses his knowledge and skills to tell Yoruba ancestral and familial stories. “The history of cultures is shown in the Taino of Jamaica and Yoruba of Nigeria in different forms … Stories with metal aims to revive and highlight the rich cultural heritage at risk of becoming extinct in our society,” among other things, is how he explains the show in his notes.

In keeping with the theme, elements of Jamaican history and heritage are skillfully depicted in the metals. They are stories of the Taino, the transatlantic trade in Africans, the ‘Middle Passage’, resistance to slavery, ‘Maroonage’, and Emancipation, all etched in the metals, which are actually recycled materials.

“Recycling and reusing lithography plates for chasing and repoussé technique, the images are drawn directly on the plates, carefully brought out and detailed, giving the true story of cultural life and the relationship of traditional Yoruba, Benin of Nigeria, and Taino, Maroon and Rastafari of Jamaica. The background is detailed, with curved and straight lines meeting each other at a point alongside symbols and motifs, such as cowrie, combs, manila and others,” Luqman says in his artist’s statement.

Apart from the aesthetics and the visual appeal of the pieces, the stories they tell force viewers to reflect and ask questions, because Luqman’s art is provocative and has brought the stories of the ancestors to life. The Tainos, the people who inhabited Jamaica before the arrival of the Europeans, are represented by ‘Taino Zemi1’ and ‘Taino Zemi 2’. Zemis were representational objects fashioned from natural materials by the Tainos to use in their social, political and religion rituals. But their world came tumbling when overwork, Columbian diseases, and murder almost annihilated them.

The Tainos were replaced on the plantations by Africans brought across the Atlantic Ocean through what is widely known as the Middle Passage, the second leg of the triangular slave trade. The story of the cramped and inhuman conditions of the journey from Africa to the Caribbean is poignantly told in ‘Middle Passage’.

There are three pieces in which the abeng is the main subject. The abeng is actually a cattle’s horn adjusted to give off a variety of sounds when blown. It was, and still is, an important instrument in the Maroon story and celebrations, which is depicted in a piece called ‘Maroon Festival’. The Maroons were the Africans who fled the plantations to create their own space. Their flight was an effective form of resistance, and on show are three pieces called ‘Resistance’. Resistance eventually led to freedom, which is portrayed in ‘Emancipation’, another part of our checkered story.

Hospitality Jamaica spoke with Luqman about the importance of including Jamaican stories in his array, and he said “the history of Jamaica and Africa are related in so many ways,” among other things. The unusual pieces on the Jamaica art landscape have been quite a stir, pulling patrons from all over the Corporate Area towards them.

Members of the diplomatic corps, viz an entourage from the Cuban Embassy, led by Counsellor Ricardo Calvo Aguila; Embassy of Panama Deputy Chief of Mission Rolando E. Barrow, Nigerian High Commissioner to Jamaica Janet Olisa and Ambassador Dada Olisa; justice of the peace, honorary consul of the Consulate of the Republic of Latvia in Jamaica, and dean of the Consular Corps of Jamaica, Robert C. Scott, were heavily represented on opening night, and since then, more expatriates have gone to see the awe-inspiring pieces, telling stories with metal.