Image: "The Strong Women" by Abosede Okeowo. Portrays (from left to right) Helen Hall, Abosede Okeowo and Winda Karunadhita.Media: charcoal, graphite and acrylic paint
As part of our Pen Pals project with British Council, cohorts of UK, Indonesian and Nigerian artists corresponded with one another, learning, sharing and developing their practice together.
Read reflections below from the group made up of Abosede Okeowo (Nigeria), Helen Hall (UK) and Winda Karunadhita (Indonesia). By navigating to their individual profiles, you'll also be able to catch selections of work by each artist shared in installments over the course of DaDaFest International 2022.
Pen Pals Reflections
by Abosede, Helen and Winda
Abosede Okeowo:
I am so grateful to DaDa for connecting us. I'm happy to be with Helen and Winda their have been so encouragement and uplifting, they are words are inspirations for me which is why I draw this mouth charcoal on paper, I love seeing beauty of nature that is why I painted those three in the middle, the last one just creating design.
Helen Hall:
To begin this reflection I decided to reread the conversations I had via Whatsapp with my fellow pen pal artists, Abosede and Winda. What struck me, was just how much ground we covered in our conversations, how much we learned about each other and also how supportive a network we had created for each other. We shared examples of artwork, ideas on processes, what inspires us and what we are working on. We also shared stories from our daily lives and also kept each other going when any of us faced an obstacle.
Through this sharing we learned about our different approaches, ways of working, and how we feel as artists in our own countries. Within this, we learned about experiences that connected us; experiences that we shared and could relate to.
It was finding these moments of shared connection that inspired how we each individually chose to respond through our creative practices.
For the past decade my main creative practice has been within the area of dance and movement, but I also have a background in visual art, which I have been hoping to return to and find ways to blend the two practices together. Both my pen pals are visual artists who create beautifully detailed work. Collaborating with these artists, and seeing their work, encouraged me to further push how I can bring visual arts into my movement practice. I had started some initial explorations into the medium of cyanotype (using chemicals to make papers photosensitive and then making photographic exposures on them). So I wanted to continue exploring this medium.
In my conversations with Winda I found it interesting to learn that she prefers to paint while sitting on the floor, rather than in her wheelchair, as she explained she feels more freedom of movement while on the floor. . When I am in the dance studio, I enjoy “floor work”, and as someone with severe sight loss, the floor provides me with another layer of support I can work with. So I began to use some of these “floor work” movements (rolling, sliding, crawling etc), directly on the cyanotype as it was exposing, to see what marks my movements would leave on the paper. The idea of capturing movement is also something that has intrigued me for a long time.
Winda and Abosede (through work with a student) shared artworks that depicted imagery of hands, looking at the supportive nature that hands can provide. We discussed how our WhatsApp communications were in a sense, like supportive hands, a way of reaching each other. So I also began to explore the image of the hand on the cyanotype and how I could use my hands to make marks directly on the paper during the exposures.
The cyanotype process is still a process that I am experimenting with, and is new to me. So some of these images came out well, and some didn’t! And this was all a learning process. But even this reminded me of the pen pals project. That it wasn’t so much about a final outcomes, but rather a process of learning and supporting each other. This made me reflect on the process of creating the cyanotype, as during the exposures, beautiful textures and colours come out, that are then washed away when developing the final print. So I began photographing the “exposure process”, as this was sometimes more interesting than the final result.
The very process of how we communicated also provided me with creative ideas. We communicated via WhatsApp on our phones. The other artists shared images of their artworks, and for me to see this on a phone (which is quite small) I have to zoom close in to see all the little details. As both Winda and Aboosede work in such beautiful detail, I found this a really enjoyable experience. ‘Zooming in’ provided me with another perspective. I decided to apply this ‘zooming in’ process to the cyanotype images, using a came to capture the small delicate textures and patterns and give a new perspective. With my visual impairment, working in very small detail is hard, so I was fascinated by the detail Winda and Abosede could produce. So this ‘zoom in’ idea (with a camera) allowed me to produce my own type of beautifully detailed work.
I tried to film myself during all the cyanotype exposures, with the idea of putting them together in a short ‘dance/movement’ film, however, this is still a work-in-progress…
I would also like to continue exploring the idea of “zooming into the details”. I plan to take this idea into the dance studio and work with movement and video.
The idea of creating short “dance films” in the future, has also come from our conversations about social media. For me, as a visually impaired person, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with social media. However, during our conversations, it was clear to me just how important social media was for Winda and Abosede, in terms of promoting artwork and reaching new audiences. This encouraged me to rethink how I can use social media to reach new audiences.
I look forward to staying in contact with both Winda and Abosede, and seeing what the future brings…
Winda Karunadhita:
I am really happy to participate in Pen Pals project. It is an international collaboration project. I’ve learned a lot and gained new experience. I am very thankful to Butong, my companion from Jogja Disability Art. He has been really helpful with things I could not understand, because this is a new experience for me.
I’m glad to be in the same team with Helen and Abosede. Our communication is very good. Maybe I am not a conversation starter, but Helen always initiates to talk and creates interesting conversations. She shares many things in details. I admire her artwork and her beautiful dancing skill. She has a lovely personality and is the eldest among us three. I feel like having a best friend and a sister in the team.
Abosede is a very talented girl who creates fine realist artworks. She has a strong personality. Her country’s circumstances do not stop her big passion to make art. She does not hesitate to share in groups or in private. She’s willing to learn and very open to input from her friends.
Even though we cannot meet face to face yet, art and Pen Pals project has created a bond in our hearts.
I am really happy to participate in Pen Pals project. It is an international collaboration project. I’ve learned a lot and gained new experience. I am very thankful to Butong, my companion from Jogja Disability Art. He has been really helpful with things I could not understand, because this is a new experience for me.
I’m glad to be in the same team with Helen and Abosede. Our communication is very good. Maybe I am not a conversation starter, but Helen always initiates to talk and creates interesting conversations. She shares many things in details. I admire her artwork and her beautiful dancing skill. She has a lovely personality and is the eldest among us three. I feel like having a best friend and a sister in the team.
Abosede is a very talented girl who creates fine realist artworks. She has a strong personality. Her country’s circumstances do not stop her big passion to make art. She does not hesitate to share in groups or in private. She’s willing to learn and very open to input from her friends.
Even though we cannot meet face to face yet, art and Pen Pals project has created a bond in our hearts.