‘The idea of the African is strange. I have never seen him. He was conjured up in a book and is often sought after in narrative
The African is becoming strange to me.
I don’t know who they are.
My ancestors were not African until someone settled on this name. Who is the African
Who made them?
What was the name of the continent before the colonists came?’
As a diasporan, Trophy Ewila is on a journey to re-‘member'' stories of his ancestors hidden by the conditions of the global colonial project. He questions what constitutes ‘Africanness’, the authorship of the character, and the role of the character to the author’s culture. Ewila is inspired by the Akan symbol and concept of Sankofa in looking at Re-Membering as a form of agency to one’s liberty by granting access to the Contemporary African to Re-Member Their-story in order to determine the direction of their future.
Using faces as a symbol/metaphor of Identity, Ewila explores the strangeness of the ‘African’ character. He uses the compositions/concoctions in these pieces - arranged through quasi shamanic spiritual practice- to exorcise the true identity of the ‘African’ from the imposition of Western/Capitalist/Colonial/White Supremacist cultural values as universal norms.
“Every day, I think about LIBERATION.
I think about DECOLONISATION. “
-Trophy Ewila
What Was the Name of Africa Before the Colonialist Came? is on view in the Members’ Gallery from October 8 to October 30, 2021.
Trophy Ewila is best understood through his interest in finding the ‘name of Africa given by its Indigenous inhabitants before European Colonialism’. He is a graduate of UBCO (BA General studies, Economics concentration), a member of the founding executive committee of the UBCO African Caribbean Student Club and the first Black (and international) student to be president of UBCSUO. Trophy is co-founder of the African Ubuntu Association and he is a founding member of Kinfolk Nation- an African, Caribbean artist group who tell their story through singing, poetry, storytelling, theatre and art forms of all kinds.
