New Telegraph 
As part of activities marking the 89th birthday of Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange (WSICE) recently unveiled an art gallery in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. The WSICE Gallery which showcases 89 works by students is aimed at harnessing the creative brilliance of emerging student artists and catching and developing them young: those with creative imagination.
The latest initiative of the 14-year OpenDoorSeries, the Gallery project is borne out of the deep commitment of the WSICE to mentoring and supporting the young ones to uncover their creative potentials, geared towards helping to inculcate leadership capabilities in them. “The WSICE over the years has continuously been a curator of dreams of the youths, and an ardent advocate for positioning the literary, performative and the visual arts at the centre of nation building and national development. “We welcome you to the extraordinary unveiling of the WSICE Gallery. With boundless imagination and a fervent belief in the transformative power of the art, WSICE Gallery TODAY has embarked on a mission to use visual art forms as a panacea for the unification of creative imaginative potentials in our youths the leaders of tomorrow,” the Executive Producer of the WSICE, Dr Teju Kareem said.
He added that “the students during past editions of the WSICE were mentored and motivated to express their creative and artistic instincts and resourcefulness unlimitedly with focus on the idea of nation building and ramping up the possibilities of the prosperity of Nigeria and, the world. It is our duty to engage them and ensure that their thinking and goals are oriented toward progress f or the motherland and humanity.” On the exhibited works, Dr Kareem said each of the paintings and other visual art forms “set the visitors on a journey of visual experiences and discoveries. By uniting the students through their arts, and the art loving community, we foster unity, affirm and uphold the dignity man; inspire and nurture future leaders.”
While addressing pupils from different primary and secondary schools who attended the event, The Producer of WSICE 2023, Joy Nweye, stated that the 89 visual works by students and other exhibited student artworks showcased at the unveiling constitute a vivid display of motifs and colours, through the universal language of art. “The vision of the WSICE Gallery today is to harness the creative brilliance of emerging student artists and catching and developing them young: those with creative imagination,” Nweye said. She added that aside from international contributors, the works at the gallery comprise works received from pupils at previous events where school children displayed their artistic skills. “We compiled those works to unveil the gallery.
The majority of what you see here are from students who participated in WSICE events years ago.” Historical, cultural significance Abeokuta, notes Dr. Tunde Awosanmi, a lecturer in Theatre Arts, University of Ibadan, has been known as one of Nigeria’s deeply cultured and cultural cities. “The cultural status of the city whose wealth and industriousness are penetratingly defined by the depth and elegance of the adire textile for which it is famous is also as aged as the Olumo rock and other granite outcrops, a collectively protuberant ecological presence that informed the name of the city.
“Historically, this is a city of battles and of warriors known for fighting many battles. The Egba people of Abeokuta were known to have contributed their own stupendous quota to the Yoruba internecine wars of the 19th century. Their neighbours would not forget them so easily for rising up each moment when their territorial integrity and humanity as a people was threatened. Within Nigeria’s contemporary history, the city has produced fighters and warriors whose weapons of combat deviated from the conventional instruments and designs. Warriors like Wole” Continuing, he also notes,
“Soyinka and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, within the context of that contemporary history, are veterans who have chosen the most unsuspecting tool, art, as the effective medium of wagging their humanistic wars. It was, therefore, in honour of one of these justice advocates for the human race that Abeokuta witnessed, on the 13th July, 2023, the inauguration of an artistic and cultural institution which plans to play a major role as a center for engaging in battles that are related with the edification of the human spirit. The event was the unveiling of the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange Gallery of arts.
“The event was scheduled to commemorate the 89th birthday anniversary of Professor Wole Soyinka, the global cultural icon and humanist. This particular gallery comes with a remarkable distinction. It has been designed for showcasing art works produced essentially by children.” According to Awosanmi, this approach, however, is historically traceable to the strategy of engagement of WSCIE since 2009 when it came into being with the voluntary mandate to annually consummate the birth date of Professor Wole Soyinka as a symbolic point of contact with the minds of children, not only on national scale but even on the international calendar.
“The cultural exchange project of WSCIE has been driven by a passion to mentor and groom, directly and indirectly, the age-group of people that falls within the category identifiable as children and youth drawn principally from primary and secondary levels of education. “In response to this objective, the WSICE Gallery distinctively targets the mind of children and early youth.
This is why the opening on the 13th July, 2023 intentionally had on display 89innocent but purposeful paintings carefully selected from hundreds of such that had been produced by children over the years at the WSICE “Do-Your-Own-Thing” programme– a major aspect of the organization’s yearly activities designed for commemorating the birthday of the Nobel Laureate.” Certainly, there is a reason for the choice of just 89 out of the multitudes of others that testify to the creative independence and assiduity of thousands of Nigerian children who had had the opportunity of being mentored on the platform of this annual Wole Soyinka birthday commemoration.
The figure signifies an intended approach at numerical symbolization of the number of new children which are born in that very year by Wole Soyinka by way of intellectual and ethical inspiration. Since 2009 when Wole Soyinka attained the age of 75, WSICE had deliberately devised the strategy to approach each ceremonial year through an iconographic lens by which 75 minds were structured to tally with the age of the sage. This number has since increased by one every fresh year, up until this current year 2023which marks the writer’s 89years of prodigious existence.
