There's Time But We Do Not Have Time

Irrelevance is also a meaning, a signifier.

Every picture holds meaning. It can be for the definition of a moment or a memory. Every shot, even a mistake, could insight a meaning in layers – a definition of how careless we are or what made the mistake happen.

I have been taking pictures of things. Just things. Mostly not humans. Because I believe things hold more meaning than humans. Humans evolve. We change. We adapt to things and moments and age, but things remain what they are. A picture of a thing from years ago remains  what it is. And even when things change, they don't shift.

For instance, a picture of a bridge, no matter how many years it's been taken, cannot take away its meaning as a “bridge.” It might rot but its meaning does not shift, even when it breaks. A man can die a minute after the picture is taken. And immediately after the death, the man's name changes to “a dead person.” Although, a picture of a dead man also holds meaning, but something has been shifted. Sha, every picture has a meaning.

I take pictures when I'm moving. I don't have the luxury of going out often because it seems a part of me always strikes a deal with the walls of every house I've lived in. I've been in this city for over two years and if you are an out-goer, you can get me lost within a day or two of your stay. But I take notice of what's around me. Or I take notice of the things that strike me through the pictures I take. I walk a lot, and while music occupies most of my thoughts while walking, I leave a part out to capture things that'd make me remember what matters. It can be a signpost, or a bird, or a tree, a pole, the sky or anything you might find irrelevant. Irrelevance is also a meaning, a signifier. 

But sometimes too, I take pictures of things that remind me of home or a moment from the past. I want to show you some of them:

Ibadan. I am tempted to give them names. Sodeeq and Tobi. But there is a danger in naming. It settles you into the hands of stereotypes. So I leave them as they are, men, whose names I'd forever not know. As they hang there on the metal ladder, they are oblivious of the world around them. They simply just want to put their part in constructing the bridge so they could eat. They left their homes with hopes in their pockets, hoping to replace the hopes with some cash as they head back home. I didn't pray for them as my motor moved past them. I prayed that the metal they stand on does not break. Because right there, their lives do not belong or depend on them. It depends on the metal.

There are dead birds on the road. Blood and intestines and offals are squashed with their feathers. When I was first heading out, one of these birds, a stainless white bird, trailed behind me. For about 30 minutes, it kept following me. I called it my angel and took its picture. When I was returning, I saw it in the company of the dead birds. My angel is dead. These birds have feathers but they've lost the thing that makes them fly. Would they still be called birds despite losing the ability to fly? How sure am I that the dead bird is “my angel”? I look up and see other birds fly from one roof to another. I point at one and say, there, that's my new angel. The story of humans.

I am somewhere in this picture. Somewhere outside our compound, in the open, in Iwo. I am dragging the turning stick at myself so the fufu could become moist and prepared. Passersby hail me, Oko Iya Oni Fufu, and I smile back at them or ignore them because I've had enough. I have always been protective of my mother. There is an abstract pressure that has pulled the obligation of being there for her on me. My father died before I was born and despite being the last born, I inherited every name he had. I don't know if this is why I think I am my father's replacement but I can't afford to lift my face off my mother. Even when I'm away from her, I use someone else's eyes as my lens. This picture reminds me of who I have become. I realise that I belong to a generation of people who are always running, always moving onto the next without acknowledging what the past or present had offered. So I took the picture to remind myself of what I am and what I was. I used to spend hours breathing under firewood's smokes but now I can't walk past smoke without coughing my heart out. There is something in the future.