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this my whole hole whole hole this still little me me me
Funto Omojola

GALLERY II

Funto Omojola, body no be firewood, 2024, Archival inkjet print, 24 x 20 inches.

May 25 – June 23, 2024

Opening reception: Saturday, May 25, from 6–8pm

A.I.R Gallery is pleased to announce this my whole hole whole hole this still little me me me, a multimedia exhibition by 2023–2024 Fellow Funto Omojola. In the exhibition, photographic portraits are collected alongside bodily artifacts, like the artist’s hair, to create a reliquary for a pillaged body. Black-and-white self-portraits, in which the artist often appears blurred and distorted, are shown alongside photo album-sized images of the artist’s family in their home space. Informed both by Yoruba understandings of illness as well as violent, colonial medical understandings of disease, Omojola considers what is left after a marked body has been despoiled or wounded, as well as what emerges when their family’s histories of ailment and indisposition are processed through Western belief systems, and arrive at Western institutions as artifacts framed for intimate review and revisit. 

Body no be firewood:
oh lovely beautiful body, You!
A vessel, my soul, spirit, torture belonging 
Tender but ruggedly commending
Oh lovely beautiful body, you!
Cherished, nourished, fighting, commotion
Every part of you spoke without confusion 
Now, we all know the victory you emitted to conquer.
Discombobulated but not destroyed.
Tiny little stitches woven together like ‘‘aso oke’’
to put you together again lovely body, You!
Painful memories,Yet scares are reminders
Now is the time to unwind beautiful body you!
all bodies deserve to maintain a meaningful purpose of life.
Thanks, to the creator of my beautiful body you!

 — Abimbola Omojola, the artist’s mother

Body no be wood
Ara n fé̩̩simi
The slogan of the body
Ara líle ni ìpìnlè̩ o̩rò̩
The mandate of its goodness
Kátàkárà, káràkátà
Kára kó lekoko
The ups and downs
The downs and ups
Healthy it must be.
Ani, oun ni ìpìnlè̩ o̩rò̩
Health, they say is wealth
E̩ni ba kan lo mo
Wait not until it weakens
Wait not until it weakens
The ups and downs
The downs and ups
Àláfíà ara
The body as the harbinger of wealth
Òun ni ìpìnlè̩ o̩rò̩
Ká sin gbé̩̩ré̩̩, abé̩̩ré̩̩ ilu òkèèrè
The doctor’s tool, or the Babalawo’s needle
Irin is̩é̩̩ Òyìnbó,
Irin is̩é̩̩ ilè̩ Òòduà
Deutsche chirurgische instrumente,
Or the Odùduwà libation
Kátàkárà, káràkátà
Kára kó le koko
The ups and downs
The downs and ups
Aisan mabara je
Disease, not my portion
Ara n fesimi
The slogan of the body
Ara lile ni igbile oro
The mandate of its goodness
Kátàkárà, káràkátà
Kára kó lekoko
 
 — Olabode Omojola, the artist’s father

Funto Omojola (b. 1996 Ilorin, Nigeria) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Omojola has done projects with Dia Chelsea, New York; Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, among others. Their work has been supported by MacDowell, Peterborough; Cave Canem Foundation, Brooklyn; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; Millay Arts, Austerlitz; and the Poetry Project, New York. 

View the Press Release here.

View Funto Omojola’s page here.

 

Photography: Matthew Sherman