Becoming Abiola (On The Intimacy of Objects)

BECOMING
ABIOLA
(ON THE INTIMACY
OF OBJECTS)
Becoming Abiola
(on the intimacy of objects)
by Evan Ifekoya, 2016
Tutor: Jessica Potter

Word count: 9028
(1)
------------------------------------------------
(1) Fred Moten, In The Break (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2003), 2016 <http://emailstoabiola.tumblr.com/
post/149745848578/from-in-the-break-by-fred-moten-2003>
[accessed 31 August 2016].
THANK YOU
Abiola Adebutu, Laura Barker, Holly Ingleton,

Carmen Moersch and Jessica Potter.
All of whom contribute to the polyvocality of

the following text.
CONTENTS
Page 9-13: Prologue
Page 15: Email to Abiola #1
Page 51-52: Interlude
Page 79-80: Email to Abiola #5
Page 95-97: Epilogue
Page 99-101: Bibligraphy

THE PAST IS PROLOGUE
‘Some-thing
other than a This text, revolving around a series of
theoretical emails sent to a friend, Abiola, has the
discourse is
urgency of communities in crisis at it’s
required to
answer to the core. A number of tactics for navigating
exigency of this moment must be put into play. The text
community’ (2) invites you, the reader, by way of first
person address, to take on the position of
Abiola as you move through it.
The sense of urgency that drives this text

responds to the contemporary moment of
unrest in the United Kingdom. The inception
‘beings-in-co-
mon’ (3) of activist groups such as Movement for
Justice, Sisters Uncut and Black Lives
Matter London(5) respond to the lack of
resources and access to services afforded to
non sovereign subjects and creates spaces to
resist, together. The plurality within the
‘[t]here is a names - ‘sisters’ and ‘black lives’ speaks
need to write to the fact that although these groups come
it,
together with a common aim, they reflect
because the
communication individual and diverse subjects. How should
that is a community reflect the demands of
community individuals? What strategies must be put
exceeds the into place to respond to this?
horizon of
signification’
(4) Communities come together around a shared
point of identification. ‘Becoming Abiola’
explores the role of language in cultivating
and nourishing spaces of belonging, whilst
attending to the disparate and multifaceted
nature of the people that make up a
community.
9
------------------------------------------------
(2) Jean-Luc Nancy, The Inoperative Community (Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, 1991
(3) Jean Luc Nancy (see note 2)
(4) Jean Luc Nancy (see note 2)
(5) Movement for Justice by any means necassary, 2016 <https://
twitter.com/followMFJ> [accessed 31 August 2016].
Sisters Uncut, 2016 <http://www.sistersuncut.org/> [accessed 31
August 2016]
Black Lives Matter LDN, 2016 <https://twitter.com/blmldnmove-
ment> [accessed 31 August 2016]
How does experience, shared through language
‘attachment
more accurately generate a space of
describes the resistance that can bring people together
affective across their differences?
dimensions of
being propped
on and
Writing a community, by giving voice to
relying on an individual experience, fractures the
object onto previously limiting points of
which fantasies identification. It is in the expanding of
of flourishing
how and with whom we identify that we can
are projected,
such as those continue to resist and persist.
of what a good
life is, who Alongside the emails to Abiola are
one’s people conversations with three important figures
are, what kinds
of politics,
- Escrava Anastacia, Lubaina Himid and Fred
ethics and Moten - either directly, through their work
value make or image. Polyvocality is utilised as a
things make critical queer black feminist practice where
satisfying
dialogue, lived experience and theory work
sense.’ (6)
together to destabilise a singular narrative
voice. The ongoing conversations, composed of
screenshots from blog and instagram posts
interrogate how we might resist in this
“Each story
moment of crisis. The making public of the
is at once a dialogue expands the potential readership and
fragment and seeks out, through the use of hashtags, the
a whole; a communities it seeks to address. The space
whole within
generated in these encounters is one
a whole. And
the same story of momentary belonging, identification,
has always been transformation, imbued with potentiality.
changing, for
things which do Complying to academic conventions disrupts
not shift and
grow
the flow of (in this case) performative
cannot writing. Instead, key theoretical ideas are
continue to translated as necessary within the emails and
circulate” (7) supporting material. Theory intentionally and
literally occupies a marginal position in
the body of this text. It’s purpose is one of
elaboration.
------------------------------------------------
(6) Lauren Berlant, “A PROPERLY POLITICAL CONCEPT OF LOVE: Three
Approaches In Ten Pages”, Cultural Anthropology, 26 (2011), 683-
691 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2011.01120.x>.
(7) T. Minh-Ha Trinh, Woman, Native, Other (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1989) p.123.
Text moves around the page in a way that can
be felt as well as seen. Let these
encounters that make up the text - with
food, sound and touch provide you, as
Abiola, with the nourishment you need to
propel you forward. The words that speculate
and circulate in and around the pages will
confront us with reading and writing with
friendship in mind as potentiality. Doing
so, whilst focused on the notion that we
come together as affinity rather than
identity groups, with the aim of generating
a new way to sustain communities.
13
From: <evan.ifekoya@gmail.com>
To: abiola.adebutu@gmail.com
Subject: Attend to histories persistence
Dear Abiola,
How are you today? I hope this message finds you well and
in good spirits.
On June 20th 2016, I was invited to participate in a study

day on the work of Lubaina Himid, at the Stuart Hall
Library, London. As well as having the honour of
presenting my work in dialogue with hers, all partici-
pants were invited to handle works from her ‘Inside the
Invisible’ series of paintings. If it is the space that
we can’t see that needs examining, how do we move forward
in this endeavour? Later in the discussion Lubaina tells
us that the works are about “how histories collide with
the personal”. I have a feeling that it’s this unexplored
space that we must strive towards, where the personal
collides with the political. It’s a scary place, an
unknown space, a risk, a haunting. How does it manifest
itself physically, if we can’t move through it. It is a
space we hear or taste?
I know you don’t have access to regular internet where

you are so I’ll share some of my ‘likes’ and ‘favourites’
with you from the past week, to keep you in the loop!
I hope you don’t mind but as I know you’ve got some time
to kill ;) I’d love your feedback on a text I’m writing
‘Tracing friendship through thin black lines’, see
attached!
xo
15
(8)
(9)
------------------------------------------------
(8) Maud Sulter, Phalia (Portrait Of Alice Walker) From The
Zabat Series (London: V&A, 1989).
i*OTUBHSBN1IPUP#Z"CJPMB"EFCVUVt"VH "U1N
UTC”, Instagram, 2016 <https://www.instagram.com/p/BJnQlQ-hM-
4d/?taken-by=emails_to_abiola> [accessed 13 September 2016].
(9) Maud Sulter, Zabat (Hebden Bridge: Urban Fox, 1989).
Emails to Abiola, 2016 <http://emailstoabiola.tumblr.com/
post/149552411168/as-a-black-person-and-a-woman-i-dont-read-his-
tory> [accessed 13 September 2016].
To articulate
the past
historically
does not mean
to recognize
it ‘the way it
really was’
(Ranke).
It means to
seize hold of
a memory as it
flashes up at a
moment of
danger.
Historical
materialism
wishes to retain
that image of
the past which
unexpectedly
appears to man
singled out by
history at a
moment of
danger. The
danger affects
both the content
of the tradition
and its
receivers. The
same threat
hangs over both:
that of becoming
a tool of the
ruling classes.
In every era
the attempt must
be made anew to
wrest tradition
away from a
conformism that
is about to
overpower it...
(10)
(11)
------------------------------------------------
(10) Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, and Harry Zorn, “Theses
on the Philosophy of History”, Illuminations (London: Pimlico,
1999)
(11) Lubaina Himid, Inside The Invisible (Norway: St. Jorgens
Museum Bergen, 2002).
(12)
------------------------------------------------
(12) Emails to Abiola, 2016 <http://emailstoabiola.tumblr.com/
post/149552465448/its-the-space-that-we-cant-see-that-needs>
[accessed 13 September 2016].
(13)
------------------------------------------------
(13) Inside cover: Sutapa Biswas and others, Thin Black Line(S)
(London: Making Histories Visible Project, Centre for
Contemporary Art, UCLAN, 2011).
(14)
------------------------------------------------
(14) Amelia Jones (ed.), Sexuality (London: Whitechapel Gallery,
2014).
“Evan Ifekoya On Twitter: “Claudette Johnson’s Words Republished
In The @_Thewhitechapel ‘Sexuality’ Book (Documents Series)
Still Ring True. Https://T.Co/Rlkxaivx8x””, Twitter.com, 2016
<https://twitter.com/evan_ife/status/708632494220910592>
(15)
------------------------------------------------
(15) Collective Creativity, Redefining Legacy: Navigating
‘Emerging’ Practice As Artists Of Colour, An Interview With
Lubaina Himid, 2014 <https://vimeo.com/123412348> [accessed 13
September 2016].
TRACING FRIENDSHIP THROUGH THIN BLACK LINES
‘Ka’, the spirit of resistance, permeates the

following text. Ka is a term I came to learn of
through the work of Lubaina Himid and Maud Sulter.
In the catalogue for the exhibition ‘New robes for
MaShulan’ by Lubaina Himid, Maud Sulter writes that
the artwork would ‘often come back devoid of small
pieces of card or wool or drawing pins. Never
vandalized just depleted. It’s nice to think that
Black people take small tokens as saphies...Tokens
of remembrance.’ Sulter takes the gesture enacted by
the viewer as an act of solidarity, friendship even,
a sign that the work made is to be shared as a
collective endeavour.
Across a prolific output of collaborative

exhibitions, magazine articles and catalogue
essays the relationship between this pair of
artists is made visible. The traces of friendship
that I find are encouraging in my own pursuit of a
de-individualising artistic practice. Is there
something specific in an art work made between and
for friends? Distinct from the increasingly market
driven ‘archetypal subject-object relation’ approach
to art making.
Meeting Lubaina Himid, on 7th December 2013 at a

study day on the work of Claudette Johnson, I
approached her to introduce myself. After a brief
conversation, she gave me a copy of the exhibition
catalogue for ‘Thin Black Line(s)’, an exhibition:
‘drawing on multiple languages and media ...

repositioned the black female presence from the
margins to the centre of debates about
representation and art making.’
It proved to be the beginning of continuing bond.
What I enjoyed most about the catalogue was the
‘letters to Susan’, where Lubaina writes first
person accounts of memories surrounding the original
exhibition, the process and the trials and
tribulations of organising are made explicit.
‘Sutapa Biswas’ Housewife with Steak Knives was an

astonishing almost larger than life sized pastel
drawing in deep red black and brown, a contemporary
translation of the multi armed goddess Kali
brandishing knives, flowers and flags….Later in the
run some idiot spat on the piece and we began to
understand the power of what we had achieved.’
‘We made it so that we could communicate, so that

we could swell the ranks of active, creative and
political artists. We made it for young women like
ourselves and also for the thousands of older black
women in Britain who had supported the system for
decades.’
Making work in the 1980’s practices such as this

were necessary, crucial even. There had not
existed previously spaces for black women to
show their art on their own terms. Writing in a
different moment in time, 2016, I wonder what we
should take from these practices, what we should
carry with us moving forward and what we need to
do differently.
(16)
(17)
------------------------------------------------
(16) Claudette Johnson Study Day, A3 Project Space, organised
by Room next to mine (Marlene Smith) http://theroomnexttomine.
co.uk/projects/study-days-2013/a-claudette-johnson-study-day/
Feminist Art News (FAN) Vol.2 Number 8, Autumn 1988, Vol.2
Number 9 (no date) Vol.3 no.4/no date, p2
New Robes For Mashulan, Exhibition catalogue, by Lubaina Himid
and Maud Sulter, (Rochadale: Rochdale Art Gallery, 1987)
Passion: Discourses on Blackwomens Creativity edited by Maud
Sulter, 1990, (Hebden Bridge, West Yorshire: Urban Fox Press)
Rochdale Art Gallery, both Lubaina Himid and Maud Sulter worked
here as curators during the 1980s.
Thin Black Line(S) (London: Making Histories Visible Project,
Centre for Contemporary Art, UCLAN, 2011).
Maud Sulter, Zabat Series, Photography (London: V&A, 1989).
(17) Sutapa Biswas, Housewives With Steak-Knives (Tate
Liverpool: Bradford Museums and Galleries, 1985).
(18)
------------------------------------------------
(18) Maud Sulter, Zabat (Hebden Bridge: Urban Fox, 1989).
post/149553658303/preserve-recognise-your-self-heritage>
Subject: Attend to histories persistence
Dear Abiola,
It’s been a while since my last email but I hope all

is well?
There’s an image that hangs on my bedroom wall that

I’ve become obsessed with. It’s become more than
an image to me. It’s a photocopy of a double page
spread from the book ‘Plantation Memories’ by Grada
Kilomba. This particularly chapter, The Mask’ tells
the story of Escrava Anastacia, do you know about
her? It’s a harrowing story so I won’t go into the
details here, I don’t know what you’ve been through
today! As usual, my ramblings and research are
attached to this email, they will illuminate her
story for you.
As always, let me know how your doing, I love

getting your updates!
xo
35
(19)
DO YOU KNOW THE STORY OF ESCRAVA ANASTACIA?
It’s an image has been persisting in my mind for

quite some time now. There is a photo of my bedroom
wall, with some other objects reflected in the
mirror. An image of Escrava Anastacia sits alongside
the work of artists Lubaina Himid and Maud Sulter.
The photo is a distant image, rather than the de-
tailed close portrait of Escrava Anastacia, as an act
of care. It’s a violent but beautifully
crafted etching, depicting an elaborate metal mask
placed over the mouth of a black figure.
‘This mask was a very concrete piece, a real

instrument, which became part of the European
colonial project for more than three hundred
years...’(Grada Kilomba)
I choose not to elaborate on Anastacia’s story, many

versions have already been told. Despite the lack of
details that I present you with, please be assured
that Escrava Anastacia plays a crucial in this text.
Instead, I’d like to emphasise that what feels
important is not where she has been and how she lived
but what her image does - what does it do for me?
What can it do for us? So, let’s imagine, the ‘what’
that happens when we ‘coalesce around a personalized
image than an abstraction’.
This image of Escrava Anastacia, that I see daily is

It persists in my mind as an outline, reminding me
that still, ‘something-must-be-done’.
In order to establish what that something is, I must
retrace my steps, exploring my own life archive
alongside histories past, present and yet to come.
(20)
------------------------------------------------
(19) Emails to Abiola, 27Th August 2016, 2016 <http://emailsto-
abiola.tumblr.com/post/149555235703/an-image-of-escrava-anastac-
ia-hangs-on-my-bedroom> [accessed 13 September 2016]
(20) Jerome Handler and Kelly Hayes, “Escrava
Anastcia: The Iconographic History Of A Brazilian
Popular Saint”, African Diaspora, 2 (2009), 25-51 <http://dx.
doi.org/10.1163/187254609x430768>.
“Do You Know The Story Of Escrava Anastacia?”, Emails to
Abiola, 2016 <http://emailstoabiola.tumblr.com/
post/149555932268/do-you-know-the-story-of-escrava-anastacia>
(21)
------------------------------------------------
(21) Jerome Handler and Kelly Hayes, see note 19
(22)
(23)
------------------------------------------------
(22) S. Hartman, “Venus In Two Acts”, Small Axe: A
Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 12 (2008), 1-14 <http://dx.doi.
org/10.1215/-12-2-1>. “Do You Know The Story Of Escrava
Anastacia?”, Emails to Abiola, 2016 <http://emailstoabiola.
tumblr.com/post/149555996423/do-you-know-the-story-of-escrava-
anastacia> [accessed 13 September 2016].
(23) Avery Gordon, Ghostly Matters (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2008).
(24)
------------------------------------------------
(24) Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Undercommons.
post/149556221468/there-are-these-props-these-toys-and-if-you>
Somehow I sneaked it in unnoticed that day, the kola
nut. The journey, too painful describe was made
bearable only by this nut and the hope that I would
be able to savour its taste once I reached a place
of safety. This place never came so I kept hold of
it.
Still.
A memory of the taste of the nut, really a fruit is

all I have and so it lingers on my tongue. A bitter
greeting becomes a rose scented reply, the more I
chew the sweeter it gets.
One day, so lonely, I need it. I crack it open into
my mouth, separating the flesh from the seed. My
quarters are small and barely fit for me, let alone
a human, a contract somewhere can prove this.
What free time I have I spent looking at the bare
walls. The exposed brickwork becomes a puzzle to
solve anew each day. A small chest is my only
furniture. One day I decide to move it and notice a
crack. I push the kola nut seed into this crack, a
hole, for safekeeping.
I forget.
Lying in bed, at barely evening, after all the work

is done, I hear a sound. It whispers and beckons me
over by getting louder.
Trembling nervously, more because I don’t want to
wake HIM up, I pull back the small chest. There it
is, the kola nut. The nut, really a fruit, has grown
a branch, or several, that form the shape of a hand.
Slowly extending, it reaches for me. I push the
chest of drawers just far enough to give the plant
room to grow but not so far that the hand will
become visible.
Soon I return. Several kola nuts have begun to
sprout, bright delicious in red, green and orange.
I take one, although it’s not yet ready, ripe, to
taste.
My brother and I in the garden, play fighting as

usual. He throws a larger than usual nut at my leg
as hard as he can – “thwack”. Ricocheting it hits
the floor and splits into 3 pieces.
“‘eh eh, kmt don’t waste food, what would mami say?”
I pick up a piece of the nut, dust off the earth

from the ground, and chew.
PAUSE
I’m chewing so quickly and vigorously now,

adding more and more sticks of gum as I go. People
are cheering my on.
“How big can you blow? how big can you blow?” (to
the tune of the song ‘how low can you go, usually
sung when a game of ‘limbo’ is being played.)
The indistinguishable sweet fruity, slightly
tropical taste starts to dull. I pop another stick
in my mouth and the flavour bursts, invigorating
some corners of my taste buds once again.
I’ve created a spectacle around me. I’m excited but
feel a slowly erupting pressure as I do.
(25)
(26)
------------------------------------------------
(25) “The Kola Nut, A Fruit”, Emails to Abiola, 2016 <http://
emailstoabiola.tumblr.com/post/149556299333/somehow-i-sneaked-
it-in-unnoticed-that-day-the> [accessed 13 September 2016].
(26) Otobong Nkanga, The Operation, 2008.
Escrava Anastacia
Stays with me,
Persistent.
Thinking through the

mouth
Knowledge and knowing
Co authored by way of
everyday experience
Emotive interactions
greater than
an academy and its
discourse
Escrava Anastacia
Open call to propose
And so we come
together
Writing afternoon
evening on a weekend
A book known as (28)
It starts with this
image
The history of the
figure is a
discussion
How it came to appear
leads to speculation
Stopped from stealing
speech
That which was never
yours to start
Escrava Anastacia
Stays with me,
Persistent.
A concrete piece this
mask,
Gasp for air
Submission is a
territory
You can occupy
You can occupy
Her voice, venom
A weapon.
(27)
------------------------------------------------
(27) “Do You Know The Story Of Escrava Anastacia?”,
(28) Evan Ifekoya, Whitney And I (Uppsalla, Sweden: Revolve
Festival, 2016).
INTERLUDE:
On the matter of form
As stated at the beginning of this text, the

matter a t hand is an urgent one. The need
for this material to exist in multiple
formats - as a book, as well as a blog and
on instagram reflects a desire to reach as
many people that need these words as
possible.
How should a community reflect the demands

of individuals?
The multi-platform nature of this text is a

strategy, as response. In an ideal world,
the interactions - by email or shared as
transcripts of conversations for example,
would take place together in person, around
the dinner table. For those moments when we
can’t be together, the virtual space allows
for us to come together around shared points
of identification.
The online space allows for a feedback

loop, if only superficially in the form of
‘likes’, ‘reblogs’ and comments on posts.
It’s an accessible way of disseminating
information that we can all learn from,
having a much wider potential reach than a
text that contributes only to academic
discourse. In light of the subject and aims
of this text, existing solely for that
purpose would be contradictory.
51
Blogs such as tumblr(30) have and continue to
contribute to the identity formation of
minoritarian subjects. Harnessing hashtags
becomes a way to find people with similar
interests as you, when you don’t have access
to these communities in the ‘real world’.
For those of us that struggle with the
hierarchical and exclusive domain of
academic institutions, spaces such as this,
where knowledge can be distributed and
shared freely is liberating. Making public
the contents of ‘Becoming Abiola’ is a way
of bridging this gap.
52
(29)
------------------------------------------------
(29) Screenshots of the instagram feedback loop
Emails_to_Abiola, 2016 <http://instagram.com/emails_to_abiola>
(30) The author spent a number of formative years building
communities online via various blogs and social media platforms
(flickr, wemakezines, livejournal, myspace) and managed the
following blog - “musings on race, gender and queer identities”,
Thirdstich, 2008-2010 <http://thirdstitch.tumblr.com/archive>
Subject: Do you remember Lambeth Women’s Project?
Dear Abiola,
I don’t think I can ever forget it. I was never

directly involved in the organising but I did
participate. I visited, I absorbed. I witnessed the
swell of communities in action. On the few occasions
I did visit Lambeth Women’s Project, I learnt more
about myself, and who I wanted to become. For
example, May 2012, Joan Nestle in conversation with
Christa Holka as part of the event ‘Documenting
Lesbian Lives’ - The Closet Mixtape and Dyke Bar are
excited to present for your pleasure an afternoon of
lesbian and queer images and words. As well as two
illustrated talks by the wonderful Joan and Christa,
we will provide music, photos, food and friends...
all the good stuff!
Have you noticed how these spaces are disappearing?

It doesn’t make them any less vital. As sites of
play and resistance are decimated, physical spaces
to exist, learn and grow are dwindling so where do
we go? Queers, black and other people of colour,
activists, feminists, the disabled…Where can we
be angry? How do we cultivate spaces of intimacy
amongst ourselves? Until this place is found, might
we find home together in our language?
But language alone isn’t enough and this is why we

need multiple ‘homes’, access to multiple
communities - the communities we inherit, and the
communities we create.
xo
55
(31)
(32)
[w]hat is GIFTS, FRIENDSHIP, LAMBETH WOMENS PROJECT
friendship
other than a
proximity that
Lambeth Women’s Project provided
resists both friendship, and the space to cultivate
representation it.
and conceptual- Lambeth Women’s Project was responsible
isation?’ (33)
to and for us.
‘sharing acts Lambeth Women’s Project provided
and thoughts in commonality, experience and space to be
common’. (34) together.
Lambeth Women’s Project gave us space
A friend is
‘...a becoming
to work through even the most extreme of
other of the differences.
self’. (35) Lambeth Women’s Project allowed us to
become different versions of ourselves.
‘If we examine
Lambeth Women’s Project provided music,
the process of
“understand- photos, food and friends
ing” people and Lambeth Women’s Project accepted what I
ideas from the don’t know or understand in you, and
perspective of myself.
Western
thought, we
Lambeth Women’s Project was invested in
discover that cultivating unverifiable spaces of
its basis is minoritarian belonging.
this require-
ment for
Might we call this an affinity?
transparency.
In order to (37)
understand and
thus
accept you, I
have to measure
your solidity
with the ideal
scale provid-
ing me with
the grounds to
make comparison
and,perhaps,
judgments. I
have to
reduce.’ (36)
------------------------------------------------
(31) Ain Bailey, Save LWP Pot Banging Revelry (London, 2012)
<https://soundcloud.com/ain_bailey/save-lwp-pot-banging-revelry>
(32) Lambeth Women’s Project, Lambeth Women’s Project Logo, 2012
<https://savelambethwomensproject.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/
lwp-logo3.jpg> [accessed 13 September 2016].
(33) Giorgio Agamben, What Is An Apparatus? (Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 2009).
(34) Giorgio Agamben, see note 33
(36) Édouard Glissant and Betsy Wing, Poetics Of Relation (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997)
(37) “Gifts, Friendship, Lambeth Women’S Project”, Emails
to Abiola, 2016 <http://emailstoabiola.tumblr.com/
post/149599083658/gifts-friendship-lambeth-womens-project>
...focus on the The Lambeth Women’s Project (LWP) existed
texture of the from 1979 to 2012. LWP provided a
weave and not
on the nature
variety of crucial services and
of its maintained a number of partnerships for
components’(38) over 30 years. It was considered a
lifeline to women in Lambeth, not just
‘a becoming
locally but also nationally. LWP played
other of the
self’(39) host to a number of different projects
and events which included The Remembering
‘The self is Olive Collective (ROC), a collective
itself a dedicated to remembering the life of
multiplicity,
a superposi-
Olive Morris,(her collection is also held
tion of beings, by Lambeth Archive). It hosted the first
becomings, here Ladies Rock Camp! UK and Girls Rock Camp!
and there’s, UK and the first Black Feminists UK pub-
now and then’s.
lic event, along with art/archival
Superpositions,
not research group X Marks the Spot. LWP was
oppositions.’ an umbrella organisation which worked
(40) with many other organisations including
Muslim Sisters Jaamat and The Eritrean
‘This-here is
Women’s Action for Development, who both
the weave, and used the space for over two decades, LWP,
it weaves no provided information, counselling, craft,
boundaries’(41) yoga, art and music activities for women
of all ages. (42)
------------------------------------------------
(38) Édouard Glissant and Betsy Wing, see note 36
(40) Karen Barad, “Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting
Together-Apart”, Parallax, 20 (2014), 168-187 <http://dx.doi.org
/10.1080/13534645.2014.927623>. p.176
(41) Édouard Glissant and Betsy Wing, see note 36
(42) Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski, “Judge Us By Our Deeds” (London,
2016), LWP IV/289, Lambeth Council.
(43)
PLANTAIN KISSES
Recipe for plantain
Sunflower or vegetable
a shallow wide base pan
Kitchen towel
Seasoning - salt, pepper, chilli flakes, cayenne pepper -
get creative!
Ripe plantain
a small sharp knife
A conversation
A: What constitutes a perfectly cooked fried plantain?

B: For me, it’s very important that the plantain be over-
ripe. I like it to be …. not completely black on the
outside but near enough black. I find that if it’s still
really yellow, even when you cook it, it ends up staying
quite hard.
A: I tend to buy it when it’s in an in between state then
leave it for a couple of days.”
B: Something that is really important for me when I am
cooking plantain, is to cook it so that its really fried,
but still retains a kind of softness to the bite, and you
just don’t get that when the plantain is still quite
yellow. The banana needs to be really ripe, but not
completely black, but really ripe, ok?
...
...
What I tend to do is chop it up into nice slices, not too

thin. I’d say about 1cm and a half to 2cm thick. I quite
like them to be chunky slices, so you get a nice shape.
Fire up some oil. You want to have a generous helping of
sunflower oil. Sunflower or vegetable, you want to use a
tasteless oil. Get that real nice and hot. You want it to
be really, really hot.
A nice layer of oil, then I would fill the pan till you
have a generous amount of plantain in there but enough
room to move and agitate the plantain as you go.
So I would keep an eye on the plantain. I usually cook
it with a fork, because it’s easier to move them around.
I’ll pick them up, have a look at one, make sure that
it’s nice and charred at the bottom. I do like it to be
cooked
really well. I like it to be super crispy. Not quite
burnt. It looks a bit burnt on the outside but what will
happen is that nice really kind of nice super cooked-
ness, will contrast really nicely with that more soft
centre. Flip it over, cook it to the degree on the out-
side. Or perhaps just slightly less. Cook it on the other
side for slightly less, not quite as well done as it is
on one side. You get a balance then.
Get a plate. Get some kitchen roll to absorb the excess
oil, because you are cooking these in a lot of oil. Just
lay them out to absorb that oil.
A: That sounds delicious. When are you inviting me round

for dinner?
(44)
------------------------------------------------
(43) Michelle Cliff, No Telephone To Heaven (New York: Dutton,
1987). Emails to Abiola, 2016 <http://emailstoabiola.tumblr.
com/post/149599269283/kitty-mastered-the-route-by-subway-and-re-
turned>
(44) “From a transcript of a conversation about frying
plantain” Emails to Abiola, 2016 <http://emailstoabiola.tumblr.
com/post/149599261258/from-a-transcript-of-a-conversation-about-
frying>
(45)
(46)
------------------------------------------------
(45) Emails to Abiola, 2016 <http://emailstoabiola.tumblr.com/
post/149599541108/family-life-can-be-alienating-and-strange-
forced>
(46) Oh Yoko, Seashore (Sprinkles’ Ambient Ballroom Mix), 2016
<https://soundcloud.com/slowvertigo/oh-yoko-seashore-sprinkles>
Subject: Parsing and caramel
Dear Abiola,
I decided to make up two words yesterday. The

language I’ve been taught is no longer sufficient.
It’s also part of my attempt to recover my mother
tongue, Yoruba. At some point in my childhood, the
conversations my mum had with her mum, my nanna,
on the phone stopped being spoken in this language.
Growing up, I was never taught how to speak it,
although on hearing it, I feel a sense of
familiarity. I don’t know if my mum can still speak
her native tongue. She probably wouldn’t admit to
it, even if she could.
I’d love to hear your opinion on a couple of texts

I have been writing. The first is an extract from my
new radio play, ‘This catalogue of poses’,
reflecting on a moment from my childhood. Did
something like this ever happen to you?. The
second is a write up of the cult classic film ‘Born
in Flames’, which feels pertinent to come back to at
this moment in time, with the recent inception of a
Black Lives Matter Movement in London.
I’ve been trying to find a copy of ‘Passion:

Discourses on Blackwomen’s creativity’ to send to
you, it’s proving challenging! The book, first
published in 1990 is out of print and not widely
stocked in art libraries across the country. To me,
it’s just as crucial a text as ‘Ways of seeing’ or
‘Mythologies’! What do we do when the books we need
to read are not in our libraries? How do we find
them? How do they find us?
xo
67
Is it possible
for a
surviving
culture to live
on what it
produces
textually
amidst the
dominant
cultural
voracity that
appropriates
the meat,
leaves the
carcass, seeks
the sweets?
(47)
(48)
(49)
(50)
(51)
------------------------------------------------
(47) Lauren Berlant, “’68, Or Something”, Critical Inquiry, 21
(1994), 124-155 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/448743>.
(48) New language generated by the author, 2016, see note 46
(49) Marlene Nourbese Philip, She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence
Softly Breaks.
(50) Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands (San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt
Lute, 1987).
(51) Marlene Nourbese Philip, see note 49
(52)
------------------------------------------------
(52) Maud Sulter, Passion: Discourses On Blackwomens
Creativity (Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire: Urban Fox Press,
1990).
Sometime around 1999, Was she referring to it’s
sticky glutinous nature or how
When I was in secondary on heating up it becomes smooth
school, probably in year 8, in texture and glides easily
I was told that I had a voice across the mouth, slippery.
like caramel. Caramel has its own erotic
qualities.
A. Voice. Like. Caramel.
I did a Google search for
In that moment, taking this ‘voice like caramel’. Its the
remark at face value I didn’t name of a voice over
ask my teacher, who was white company, ‘Caramel Voices’. It
and female what she meant by also appears, in a more
the statement. Despite this, elaborate form in the book ’50
the words have stayed with me. Shades of Grey’, “His voice is
You have a voice like caramel. warm and husky like dark
Looking back, I can’t help but melted chocolate fudge
wonder what she meant by this. caramel... or something”.
Caramel is a substance which Your voice is a sweet and

comes in varying degrees of sensual object.
brown, made by heating up
sugars to a temperature of Around the same time at school,
around 170 °C. It is a sweet I am sent out of class
and sensual food that can be frequently. At a girls school,
served soft and viscous or with a group of friends we
hard and brittle. An occupy our time in lessons
adaptable food, it can be gossiping rather than studying.
served on and with various Talking as part of a group,
things like ice cream, yet somehow my voice, more
chocolate or in crème brulee. distinctive, leads to me being
It should be enjoyed in small called out and made an example
doses as a treat. Too much of of. Many lessons during
it can be bad for you. secondary school were spent
outside the headmistress’s
Your voice is a sweet and office for ‘distracting other
sensual object. students’. ‘If only she would
concentrate, she would surely
Caramel, subject to multiple reach her full potential...’
interpretations and states is From a young age, it was made
flexible in form. What does clear to me that my voice it
caramel sound like and what both a blessing and a curse.
qualities does my voice share
with it? Might it be that the Your voice is a sweet and
sound resonates on the ears sensual object, but too much of
like caramel melts on the it can be bad for you, them,
tongue? us.
qualities. (53)
------------------------------------------------
(53) “A Voice Like Caramel” Emails to Abiola, 2016 <http://
emailstoabiola.tumblr.com/post/149600483468/a-voice-like-cara-
mel>
VOICE NEW FUTURES TOGETHER
Utilising film as strategy to propose a future not that

different ‘from that which we now know’, Born in Flames,
1983 is a documentary style feminist science fiction
‘successful film about a failed revolution’. Unscripted
and shot over a period of four years it presents us with
a series of montages that come together to form a story
of women from different walks of life trying to
figure out how to work together to fight the oppressive
forces that be, not always successfully.
Most chillingly compelling about the film is the story of

Adelaide Norris, a young black lesbian and founder of the
Women’s Army, who is found dead in a police cell, after
having been arrested at the airport for conspiring to
transport arms into the US. News reports present her death
as suicide but the Socialist Youth Review and remaining
members of the Women’s Army are certain she was murdered.
‘As editors of the Socialist Youth Review, we have been
troubled by the official reports on the death of Adelaide
Norris, the founder of the Women’s Army. Grave
inconsistencies in the coroner’s report have led us to
believe that Norris did not commit suicide but was
murdered -- assassinated, if you will, for political
reasons.’ This story is all too similar to that of
Sandra Bland in the US and Sarah Reed in the UK, to name
but two. Young black women dying in police cells under
suspicious circumstances is not just the stuff of
fiction, it is a reality.
As a result of Norris’ death, members of the Socialist

Youth Review who had previously seen the Women’s Army
approach as too aggressive become radicalised and
consider the printing and disseminating of the image of
Norris’ dead body.
“If we print it, we’ll only be sensationalising it.”
“...we don’t need to fetishize a dead body, we can

mobilize in other ways.”
“...We could use those images to mobilize women.”

Isabel, lead singer of the band The Bloods and
presenter on Radio Regazza had earlier said “I don’t want
to be part of the Women’s Army: it’s all talk and no
action. It’s all rhetoric. I’ve checked it out and we’re
doing enough in the community with our music.” But on
hearing news of Norris’ death, Isabel is compelled to
into action, and takes to the airwaves to express her
concerns.
“Wake up! We’re being murdered out there in the streets.

And if you’re going to sit by and watch it happen,
Sister, all your babies, and yourselves, you’re going to
be cleaned out, we ain’t going to be around no more! Now
get it together. It’s time to fight! This is for all the
dead heroes out there… This is a message to the Women’s
Army and to women everywhere. Wake up! This is station
2016 on your dial. If you can’t find it, then you’re in
trouble, Sister.”
Later, after stealing trucks and equipment, Isabel and

women from the Phoenix and Regazza radio stations come
together to form a new mobile radio coalition. Although
not apparently in opposition, we had not seen any
indication of them working together before this point in
the film. By taking over a news broadcast and coming
together to form Phoenix-Regazza Radio they put aside
their racial and class differences. In another sequence,
we see an image of the World Trade Centre being blown
up... another eery premonition. Are we humans really
that predictable? Although we don’t see a ‘happy’ ending
to the film, the coming together of the various women’s
groups and radio stations demonstrates a disruption to
the flow of oppressive action, challenging the apparently
predetermined sequence of events.
‘To feel in WE HAVE COME TO OCCUPY YOUR FREQUENCIES
solidarity with
her or to build
with her or to Women temporally take control through
like what she language - over the radio and on tv. This
does, it is not ‘[s]peculative, aggressive, essayist..’
necessary for me film clearly demonstrates the power and
to grasp her. It
is not necessary agency held within the female voice.
to try to become Similarly, it also shows just what can
the other (to happen when we ‘coalesce around (an) image
become other) nor [rather] than an abstraction’. The martyred
to “make” her in
my image’. sister of the struggle Adelaide Norris, in
(54) her death as image, becomes rather
problematically for some, a rallying point.
This is why I chose not to bring the
visuality of Escrava Anastacia’s image into
focus, but instead move towards speculating
on what the image encourages us to do.
With the various groups, factions and

individuals that made up ‘Born in Flames’,
their differences - what they didn’t know
or understand about each other acted as a
barrier. Norris’ image provided the
necessary prop, a tool, that allowed for
the thing-ness of categorisation that had
negatively impinged on the potentiality of
their friendship to now emerge.
(55)
------------------------------------------------
(54) Édouard Glissant and Betsy Wing, see note 36. Glissant’s
text refers to male reader, more appropriate to this text, I
refer to the reade as ‘she’.
(55) Karen Jaehne, “Born In Flames”, Film Quarterly, 1984, p.22.
‘The Women’s Army seems to be dominated by Blacks and lesbians.
Norris started it as a radical-seperatist vigilante group three
or four years ago. Now it seems to be looking for a base of
support by instigating various community uprisings involving
women.’ p.4, Lizzie Borden, Born In Flames (Occasional Papers,
2011).
The Socialist Youth Review is a group consisting of seemilngly
white, middle class action, until the point of Norris’ death,
see the WA’s actions as ‘separatist’ and not in line with their
own ‘progressive’ methods.
#WhatHappenedtoSandraBland? “What Happened To Sandra
Bland?”, The Nation, 2016 <http://www.thenation.com/article/
what-happened-to-sandra-bland/> [accessed 1 June 2016]
“Voice New Futures Together” Emails to Abiola, 2016 <http://
emailstoabiola.tumblr.com/post/149601068043/voice-new-fu-
tures-together>
Subject: Parsing and caramel
Dear Abiola,
Do you remember that conference I mentioned to you a

while back, on ‘excess’? The one where some
academic presents a paper on the ‘anti portrait’ and
goes on to talk about the work of Glenn Ligon and
shows an extract of a presentation by Fred Moten on
‘Blackness and non performance’? Where I then asked
him the question of what then, in relation to those
two examples, might be the relationship between
blackness and excess? Where he pauses, and then
gives some feeble response about how my question is
a
Satrian philosophical one that he can’t really
answer.
I’d read Fred Moten’s work before that day and had
become quite seduced by it, as you already know.
Well guess what? I ended up meeting and speaking on
a
panel with him at Open School East, an arts space in
London, as a result of a couple of comments I made
about the planned event on facebook, ha! The event
was called ‘An Endless Suddenness: Thinking with
music that resists resistance’. The blurb proposed a
discussion that would explore the potential for
music to cultivate or disrupt spaces and
communities of resistance. Stating a desire to move
beyond the male brotherhood of music journalism, I
was surprised to see at the end, a list of only male
authored references. I posed my criticism of this to
the event organisers, via the event page.
...
79
As a result of my virtual protest, one of the
organisers reached out to me and we end up in
conversation in person. On the day of the event,
another organiser invites me to be on the panel with
them. I’ve come prepared with a song to contribute
to this conversation, a collective listening
session. I choose a track by the London based
producer and DJ, Nkisi. Before we start playing
music to each other, Fred says something that
continues to resonate with me “Be careful of the
language you use to air your grievances”. It reminds
me that the work I do must always speak with, to and
from community. It must
always be tender.
I’ve been left with a lingering question, ‘what role

can listening play in resisting or in resisting
resistance?’. I’ve started to write around it, ‘A
Listening Insistence’ is attached, as well as the
usual selection of screen shots to keep you in the
loop ;)
xo
80
(56)
------------------------------------------------
(56) “An Endless Suddenness: Thinking With Music That Resists
Resistance”, Facebook.com, 2016 <https://www.facebook.com/
events/136397363435171/> [accessed 19 July 2016].
A LISTENING INSISTENCE
Evan Ifekoya, The Otolith Group (Kodwod Eshun and

Angelika Sagar), Fred Moten, Anni Movsisyan,
Yussuf Musse, and Joel Sines are sitting behind a
row of brown tables in what looks like a community
hall. Memories of amateur theatre productions and
dinners served to local children linger in the air.
The location is Open School East, De Bouvoir, East
London, June 2016.
(The sound of improvisation fills the room)
Evan arrives at the event as a participant, already

armed with a song to contribute to the conversation.
A conversation has already begun, it started with a
Facebook protest. Minutes before the event unfolds
they are asked to join the rest of the panel, at the
front of the room.
(Evan’s chosen song ‘Terms and conditions of our

existence’ by Nkisi plays first)
The song cuts into the space. It breaks it up,

divides opinions.
Evan wonders if the listening insists. What can I

hear? Who can I hear? Can I hear her?
embodying distinguished
an enacted enactment
Evan and Anni meet with their eyes, their individual

bodies move together in agreement.
A feeling reflected in the rhythm of this song.
(This music makes sense to them)

Terms
Conditions
Of
Our
Existence.
Spread out carefully.

Better yet,
#natural resources
Who is the ‘we’ of ‘our’?

That sets the laid out terms and conditions.
(I gave generously in the spaciousness she says)
It is a song with a build up that transports. The

transportation leads to a surge that simultaneously
creates a register of being ready to fuck and ready
to kill.
Fred says. On the edge of danceability

A gridded blurred and barbed penetrability
It produces a movement that will make you
dance even if you don’t want to
Music that takes you out of your comfort
zone.
(This might be the sound of improvisations true

spirit)
What can we hear?

How does the listening feel?
Resistance is an inadequate but im-positioning

invitation.
Joy in the rhythm, home.
What is the song

as composition?
(shake the dust off)
In the field of dance music

outside your frame of reference.
Been smothered
plural voices
a chorus
zones of comfort.
(a female voice wails like a slowed down lowered

pitch ululation)
(In the background news of the day)
His name is Adrian too much space.

Flat, compressed
missing the authentic crack of vinyl
I might have heard this before, that phrase at
least.
(Feeling out of step can lead to a very particular

kind of bitterness)
Evan is comforted by this space and compression

simultaneous.
A figure they recognise, Dhanveer Brar responds.
What we are hearing is

‘the sociality that is not here, we are supposed to
hear this song in a club’.
Evan disagrees to say that that this space,

a perceived lack, is in fact vital.
We need that space to exist in. It’s an escape, a
momentary freedom.
(I produce a movement whether you like it or not)
We hear the raucous sound of
a mere appearance, before only dreamt
Is the properly political.
Fred says.
Be careful of the language you use to air your
grievances.
Music is also anticipation.
This reminds me
of something I have just written.
Strange fruit is famously sung by Billie Holiday.

A violent familiar of a black man lynched rendered
beautiful.
Heart wrenching.
The object of consumption and tender care,
a metaphor.
black is not reduced to personhood or to life, or
what remains.
Bound up by moments of energetic reverie
with generous servings of Holiday’s lament.
(Backed by a languidly played piano)
Evan reads a blog post by Holly Ingleton,

‘Practicing Balancing Acts’. The post considers
reparative reading in relation to the listening
subject. The reparative, established by Eve Kosofsky
Sedgwick is an intimately folding back inward into
you. Where extracts are reconfigured to sustain
objects.
An intimately folding back inward into you

Repair and
nourish a new materiality.
A repair that is simultaneously social and musical
‘reparative socio-musicalities’.
(In the background … news of the day)
Listening as resistance
listening is resistance
This listening is insistent.
Strange fruit are these terms and conditions of our

existence
Post lyrical repair

Songs with words, not lyrics or traditional
structure
verse, bridge,
chorus, verse, chorus.
Compositions that are built with poems, political

speeches or science,
a space we can’t see

they reinforce and confirm
desires to hear and be other than what we are.
This generates the affective and transformative.
This could be diffractive but matter doesn’t attend

to what is at the intersection. Jasbir Puar asks us
to place demands on Harraway, Barad and others. The
diffractive relation between things cannot ignore
that which we have been given and must continue to
interpret.
Subjects are not beyond bodies, cyborgian or
goddess. We must inhabit the space between the two
consider these positions as discursive events,
permeable.
Does that matter here?

(technology and it’s rhythms are imbued in
everything we do)
Two steps to the Left is a day long symposium that
starts with a funk lesson, Adrian Piper.
Sonia Boyce in collaboration with Evan Ifekoya at
Wysing Arts Centre.
Ain Bailey, Adelaide Bannerman, Yassmin V Foster,

Melika Ngombo Kolongo (Nkisi), Zinzi Minott, Sheence
Oretha (ORETHA) and Leyla Reynolds present with us
in various capacities. Black women.
(A day of black magic and joy)
Dance and movement create communities.

What is deliberately or unconsciously put in place
here?
Can do, wont do, can’t do according
to a set of biological essentialisms
black white male female.
Unconscious bonds and exclusions.
Invite instead a space to freeform rather than be

choreographed into existing forms.
Frankie Knuckles sent me here.
Peace in the valley
(a female voice, soulful moves individual movements
into a collective response)
Some reflective surfaces

presented their meaning to me.
Political unification through movement generates

collective awkwardness.
Space to feel and freeform creates a space not
unlike a family gathering.
(The sound of inter-culturalism in a room with fifty
people)
A social dance curriculum already exists
learn it on the floor.
A curriculum within the space of a song creates an

entry point.
The listening insistence is an unverifiable space.

It cultivates, if only momentarily, a belonging.
These moments generate potentiality, even in this
non-space, worthy of consideration. The space of the
invisible, a could be or should be is where the
inherent power of potentiality lies.
This listening is insistent.
(57)
------------------------------------------------
(57) An unpublished experimental text by the author, 2016
EPILOGUE
‘..a material A multitude of voices have made up ‘Becoming

act that is not
Abiola’. The desire as stated in the
about radical
separation, but introduction, is for a polyvocality that
on the establishes a ‘critical queer black feminist
contrary, about practice where dialogue, lived experience
making and theory work together to destablise a
connections and
commitments.’
singular narrative voice’. A variety of
(58) performative strategies have been utilised
to generate this. Firstly, a conversation-
al, friendly and intimate tone of address is
‘..although
presented in the emails to Abiola. Secondly,
feminism has
become a more formal but inviting first person
commodified in public address of the email attachments,
new ways under which is composed of poetic, strategic and
global sometimes scientific texts. Lastly, these
capitalism, it
can be
opening and closing remarks which frame the
energized and intentionally fragmented text with an
adaptively objective address, with the sole purpose of
reoriented by offering clarification for the reader.
acts of
personal
narration.(59) The question of how a community reflects the
demands of individuals remains unanswered
but the work of making space for these
‘Borders are demands has begun. An interrogation into the
set up to
define the
political potential of personal narration a
places that are nd first person address contributes to this
safe and process. The usefulness of categories of
unsafe, to identification such as ‘black’, ‘feminist’,
distinguish
‘queer’, or ‘woman’ has been put up for
us from them.
A border is a debate as a way of challenging the
dividing line, essentialist ideas that surround them. By
a narrow strip making space for new methods of
along a steep communication across differences, new
edge.’(60)
communities are written into and across
language. The reshaping and pushing of it’s
boundaries generates spaces of resistance.
93
------------------------------------------------
(58) Karen Barad, see note 40
(59) MAGGIE B. GALE, “Sidonie Smith And Julia Watson, Ed.
Interfaces: Women/Autobiography/Image/Performance Michigan
University Press, 2002. 472 P. 18.00. ISBN: 0-472-06814.”, New
Theatre Quarterly, 20 (2004), 94-95 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/
s0266464x03280374>.
(60) Karen Barad, see note 40
The figure of Abiola is never revealed, we
don’t know what they look like but the
conversations suggest a potentially
gendered and radicalised subject. The
unfolding events allow the reader to
occupy the position of Abiola rather than
merely sympathise with it. In this not
making visible, the question of what other
subject positions or other points of
identifications are present, reveals itself.
The name Abiola loosely translates to ‘wealth
is born’ in English. It is common unisex name
with the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria. (61)
Finally, a closing statement written to you,

Abiola -
‘Emails to Abiola’ is a text that is

simultaneously nourishing and reparative,
aiming to construct a space to explore how we
might continue to resist, persist and thrive
in a society that increasingly seeks to
limit and police the borders of our bodies
and movements. Weaving in and out of these
textual encounters are the following
questions -
What does resistance sound like? What does

it taste like? What are the ways in which
food contributes to resistance by
minoritarian subjects?
Through eating and listening, consuming

together and being consumed this new space
is generated.
95
‘History is a Let’s come together, coalesce around her
chronology that image or her voice. Knowing what she has
makes
experience
been through and what she survived reminds
visible, but in us that we can too. The why of this
which endeavour is less important than the how.
categories Acts of speculation that start with her
appear as
image can lead us into news ways of being
nonetheless
ahistorical: and doing in the world. Becau_she creates a
desire, ho- new set of interactions. She comes to
mosexuality, represent and reminds us of the ease in
heterosexuali- which a black woman’s voice is silenced and
ty, femininity,
masculinity,
seen as un-valuable. But rather than dwell
sex, and even on this fact, I need us to channel that
sexual feeling into a productive energy that
practices encourages transformation of our existence,
become so many
starting from the quotidian.
fixed entities
being played
out over time, Call it nourishment, call it sustenance.
but not The conversation is ongoing.
themselves
historicized.’
(62)
‘we know that

difference
exists, but we
don’t
understand it
as relationally
constituted.’
(63)
97
------------------------------------------------
(61) “Abiola” Online Nigeria, 2016 <http://www.onlinenigeria.
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Front and back cover image:
Plantain Kisses by Evan Ifekoya, 2016
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Becoming Abiola (On The Intimacy of Objects)

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BECOMING

by Evan Ifekoya, 2016

Tutor: Jessica Potter

Abiola Adebutu, Laura Barker, Holly Ingleton,

All of whom contribute to the polyvocality of

Page 9-13: Prologue

Page 15: Email to Abiola #1

Page 35: Email to Abiola #2

Page 51-52: Interlude

Page 55: Email to Abiola #3

Page 67: Email to Abiola #4

Page 79-80: Email to Abiola #5

Page 95-97: Epilogue

Page 99-101: Bibligraphy

The sense of urgency that drives this text

On June 20th 2016, I was invited to participate in a study

I know you don’t have access to regular internet where

‘Ka’, the spirit of resistance, permeates the

Across a prolific output of collaborative

Meeting Lubaina Himid, on 7th December 2013 at a

‘drawing on multiple languages and media ...

‘Sutapa Biswas’ Housewife with Steak Knives was an

‘We made it so that we could communicate, so that

Making work in the 1980’s practices such as this

It’s been a while since my last email but I hope all

There’s an image that hangs on my bedroom wall that

As always, let me know how your doing, I love

It’s an image has been persisting in my mind for

‘This mask was a very concrete piece, a real

I choose not to elaborate on Anastacia’s story, many

This image of Escrava Anastacia, that I see daily is

A memory of the taste of the nut, really a fruit is

Lying in bed, at barely evening, after all the work

My brother and I in the garden, play fighting as

I pick up a piece of the nut, dust off the earth

I’m chewing so quickly and vigorously now,

Thinking through the

As stated at the beginning of this text, the

How should a community reflect the demands

The multi-platform nature of this text is a

The online space allows for a feedback

I don’t think I can ever forget it. I was never

Have you noticed how these spaces are disappearing?

But language alone isn’t enough and this is why we

Recipe for plantain

A: What constitutes a perfectly cooked fried plantain?

What I tend to do is chop it up into nice slices, not too

A: That sounds delicious. When are you inviting me round

I decided to make up two words yesterday. The

I’d love to hear your opinion on a couple of texts

I’ve been trying to find a copy of ‘Passion:

Caramel is a substance which Your voice is a sweet and

Utilising film as strategy to propose a future not that

Most chillingly compelling about the film is the story of

As a result of Norris’ death, members of the Socialist

“If we print it, we’ll only be sensationalising it.”

“...we don’t need to fetishize a dead body, we can

“...We could use those images to mobilize women.”

“Wake up! We’re being murdered out there in the streets.

Later, after stealing trucks and equipment, Isabel and

With the various groups, factions and

Do you remember that conference I mentioned to you a

I’ve been left with a lingering question, ‘what role

Evan Ifekoya, The Otolith Group (Kodwod Eshun and

(The sound of improvisation fills the room)

Evan arrives at the event as a participant, already