“I was accomplishing nicely at arts but negative at college,” claims 24-year-old Toronto-based mostly multidisciplinary artist Ehiko Odeh when describing her very first 12 months in Canada back again in 2015.
Odeh grew up in Nigeria, in Lagos’ Surulere neighbourhood. Just prior to commencing her last year of large college, she moved to Hamilton, Ont.
“I wasn’t pleased to occur [to Canada],” she suggests. “I was [already] suffering from panic back again residence. I didn’t know what it was till I moved here, and it failed to get any much better.”
She was a environment away from her relatives, apprehensive about the safety of her mom because of to the political and financial local climate in Nigeria, and having difficulties to adapt to her new ecosystem. But her artwork class felt like a lifeline. In 2016, she saw a presentation from an Ontario School of Artwork and Layout University agent (OCAD)— she was a person of only two learners who arrived to the communicate — and swiftly “fell in enjoy” with the concept of art college.
Odeh was acknowledged into OCAD, but it failed to clear up all her issues. She was dwelling in a rental apartment that she could not do the job in, and generally could not rest in due to the fact it was as well cold. She continued to wrestle with her mental wellness and self-damage, although doing work as a dishwasher.
Odeh would frequently sleep in OCAD’s college student lounge on the second ground, or in the fourth floor’s painting studio. But in a system taught by Linda Martinello, she was supplied an assignment that modified issues for her: she was asked to make art that felt like home.
“The very first detail that came into my thoughts was my mother performing my hair,” she says. “It advanced into discovering neighborhood hair salons back again residence in Lagos, Nigeria.”
Later on, she took a imaginative crafting course with Black Canadian poet Lillian Allen.
“She’s a excellent teacher and she took me in,” claims Odeh. Allen even gave the younger artist a space heater for her frigid apartment. “She felt like the godmother that I essential, currently being in a town wherever I didn’t know any one. Lillian gave me the community that I have now.”
Through Allen she satisfied Karen Carter, the co-founder and director of Black Artists’ Networks in Dialogue Gallery & Cultural Centre (BAND).
“The quite 1st [hair] piece I did was on cardboard, because I could not pay for to purchase a canvas at the time,” claims Odeh.
Carter beloved it. In June 2019, Odeh participated in her extremely very first exhibit titled Ochu’lu O’oya-Celebrating Ceremony at BAND.
“Hair turned far more of an interest to me,” states Odeh. “That was how the collection begun.”
For DesignTO 2024, Odeh crafted the Golden Beauty Offer, an interactive exhibit in collaboration with MCA Gallery and grassroots creative company Ibifiriwari to honor the legacy of Golden’s West Indian Barber & Attractiveness Source Company, or Golden’s for small, at 860 Bathurst St. The retailer served Black communities in Toronto for many years. It can be still open up, but the landlord has set the assets up for sale.
https://www.youtube.com/enjoy?v=p8p4wD4nzI4
“At initial, [my art] was about memory and nostalgia,” suggests Odeh, who had a solo exhibit titled Our Hair Holds Memory at BAND in 2023. She performed with vibrant shades and acrylic paint then. Now she’s exploring more with oil paints, oil pastels and collage factors. She sas exploration is an vital part of her artistic process.
“There’s only so significantly getting on the internet can give me,” suggests Odeh.
She finds herself in libraries, viewing hair salons in distinct places to question hairdressers and their clientele inquiries, or to just take photos of their workspaces. This also led her to comb via another segment of hair treatment record.
“The much more I acquired about the ingredients, I really wished to emphasize that much more in my do the job,” she claims. “I want folks to be informed of who is in cost of these [hair product] businesses. Be conscious of exactly where your money is going. Money is electric power.”
Back again in Nigeria, Odeh normally sat among her mother’s legs to have her hair carried out. Currently, she wonders deeply about why American merchandise like Blue Magic and Cantu have been so present in her childhood, irrespective of not currently being Black owned.
“I uncovered it extremely interesting how these products were strategically marketed to us, and they weren’t created by us,” says Odeh. “I was curious about their elements and the facet effects of these chemical substances when they are applied extensive-time period.”
Goods like the hair relaxer Dim & Beautiful are dealing with lawsuits in the U.S. for their negative effects on very long-phrase users. But their level of popularity in African countries continues to expand, even while in October 2022 the U.S. Countrywide Institutes of Well being located that girls who use these hair relaxers additional frequently have been at bigger possibility of building uterine most cancers.
“I do want to operate with a chemist to learn more about the substances of these merchandise,” and, she adds, to supply better alternatives. Odeh states her goal just isn’t to be famous.
“It truly is about having actual connections and creating associations with folks that inspire my function, which is individuals who make hair, like my mom, my neighborhood. Those people are folks that I make function for.”
Corrections: Thanks to a misunderstod quotation, an before version of this report claimed that Odeh was accomplishing “perfectly at fights,” relatively than “properly at arts.” Also, Linda Martinello’s title was misspelled as Martino. We regret the errors and apologize.
