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Winnipeg Free Press
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Epidemic of children being kidnapped in Nigeria focus of art exhibition by Nigerian-born, Winnipeg-based visual artist Habeeb Andu
In the spring of 2014, 276 girls were abducted from their school in Chibok, Nigeria, by the extremist group Boko Haram. It was a shocking story that made headlines all over the world and sparked the global #BringBackOurGirls movement. Many high-profile people, including American first lady Michelle Obama and actor/activist Angelina Jolie, raised awareness about the missing Nigerian girls. And then, they faded from view. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Artist Habeeb Andu doesn't want people to forget the children being kidnapped in Nigeria. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Artist Habeeb Andu doesn't want people to forget the children being kidnapped in Nigeria. Nigerian-born, Winnipeg-based visual artist Habeeb Andu doesn't want people to forget them, or the thousands of others who have been kidnapped in the 11 years since. Nor does he want people to ignore the fact that the mass kidnapping of school children continues to plague his home country. Theatre of War By Habeeb Andu 226 Main Street Gallery To Aug. 30 The powerful large-scale mixed-media works that comprise his first solo exhibition in Canada, Theatre of War — on view at 226 Main Street Gallery until Aug. 30 — force the viewer to look head-on at an epidemic from which the rest of the world has mostly turned away. On the gallery's walls are large canvases that evoke classroom blackboards, giving the sense of lessons interrupted by violence. Some of them have bullet holes. Others have splatters of paint that look disconcertingly like blood. A math problem is cut off by an urgent message, written in blue: 'Run! Run!! Run!!!' MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Theatre of War is open at 226 Main Street Gallery until Aug. 30. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Theatre of War is open at 226 Main Street Gallery until Aug. 30. Andu's art is not confined to the walls. On the floor below the canvases are mounds of clothing. A single shoe. A forgotten school cap. Left behind in the haste of escape, one hopes, though the reality is likely far more bleak. 'Anytime I'm painting, I try to put myself in the shoes of the victims. I should be able to express the way they feel. That's why, sitting down before I paint, I try to meditate and try to make use of the best symbol for me to portray the story,' says Andu, 37. One of the most visceral symbols in Theatre of War is also its most tangible: Andu's use of spent bullet casings. There are piles of them, littered all over the gallery floor. Seeing them scattered among the clothing, in particular, is a harrowing reminder of the terror these children have experienced in their young lives. Using spent casings to tell this particular story is an idea he's had for years, but would have been impossible in Nigeria. Andu picks up a single casing and turns it over between his fingers. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Bullets and casings litter the ground at the Theatre of War exhibition. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Bullets and casings litter the ground at the Theatre of War exhibition. 'In my country, you can't have this. You can go to jail for this,' he says. You could be labelled an armed robber or worse, even if you just found a casing on the ground, he explains. It was too risky to make art with them. 'I still have a future to go.' But in Winnipeg, where he has lived with his wife for the past three years, Andu marvelled that he could just ask for them — hundreds of them — sourcing the spent casings from a local shooting range. 'Even if these empty cases don't come from my country, I was still able to portray my stories for the viewers to understand,' he says. With support from both the Winnipeg Art Council and the Manitoba Art Council, Andu created most of these works in the past few months. 'It takes a lot of sleepless nights,' he says. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Habeeb Andu's Eyewitness III MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Habeeb Andu's Eyewitness III But the work is important. He sees it as a document of a time and place, and what he wants viewers to understand most of all is that kidnapping is a current national security crisis in Nigeria. This isn't the past. It's now. And for the kidnappers, it's lucrative. 'Kidnapping is now a business, a business venture where you can make money, and the government is not ready to take it seriously,' he says. 'Anytime I'm painting, I try to put myself in the shoes of the victims. I should be able to express the way they feel.'– Habeeb Andu Bandits, as they are known, will kidnap people and demand high ransoms with few repercussions. 'Sometimes they kill some of them even after they receive the money,' Andu says. According to a BBC analysis from 2021, children are targeted by kidnappers because their abductions are more high-profile and the government is more likely to get involved, which could mean bigger random payouts. The Nigerian government insists it does not pay ransoms, but experts quoted in various international media outlets suggest that isn't true. That kidnapping so frequently happens to children at school, a place that is supposed to be a safe sanctuary for learning, adds a layer of violence. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Habeeb Andu's Missing Treasures II MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Habeeb Andu's Missing Treasures II Andu points out that the spectre of kidnapping looms so large that kids are dropping out or are being withdrawn from schools — often dilapidated places with poor security — by their terrified parents. Per UNICEF, about 10.5 million of Nigeria's children aged five to 14 are not in school. Zooming out, one in every five of the world's out-of-school children is in Nigeria. 'The reason I titled it Theatre of War is that it is a fight between insurgents and our educational system. The bandits see our children as a target for the government to respond to — and the government doesn't take rapid action towards it,' Andu says. 'I believe through these works, my little impacts would make the government change and take its own security of the country more seriously.' Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Local artists will decorate Liberty Bell replicas for nation's 250th anniversary
Jun. 10—Pennsylvania's plans for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States in 2026 include placing replicas of the iconic Liberty Bell — decorated by local artists — in all 67 counties, including two in Westmoreland. A replica bell also will be placed at Point State Park in Pittsburgh. Bells will be placed in Greensburg and Murrsyville in Westmoreland. Organizers are seeking an artist to decorate the Murrysville bell. Designing the bell that will be installed this summer in Greensburg is a learning curve for Ligonier artist and Main Street Gallery owner Mandy Sirofchuck. "I taught mosaic classes, and I have a 5-by-10-foot mosaic in my house, but this is the first time I've worked on a curved surface," she said. Sirofchuck pitched a glass mosaic design to the Westmoreland chapter of America250, part of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission that is working out the federal government's anniversary plans. "We have all this natural beauty here, we have so much wonderful history, and so my bell is going to feature images of our wildlife and things in the county," Sirofchuck said. "I also have a way of creating image decals and firing them onto glass. So I'll have these sepia-toned photos that will also be part of the bell design." Sirofchuck said she's been researching historical photos since she was initially contacted in 2024 about working on one of the bells, which cost about $10,000 and purchased by a sponsor. Sirofchuck's bell is sponsored tourism group Discover Westmoreland. Dawn Lamuth, advisor for America250's Westmoreland chapter, said the bell looks stunning even as a work in progress. "It brings the community together in an engaging way," Lamuth said. "There's artwork, there's information surrounding the themes, which ties into the history of the county. It tells our story within the broader context of America's 250th anniversary." That history, Lamuth noted, predates the nation. "The Hannastown Resolves came before the Declaration of Independence," she said. All of that history is part of the reason state Rep. Jill Cooper, R-Murrysville, pitched power company FirstEnergy on placing the bell they sponsored in her hometown. "I asked if they wanted to place it near the site of our first commercial natural gas well in Murrysville," Cooper said. "I think we'd like to install it near the Westmoreland Heritage Trailhead (on Route 22), so that it will be seen by the most people." America250 will pay a $1,250 honorarium and is seeking an artist for the Murrysville project. In concert with its sponsor, the bell's artistic theme will be "More Energy in Westmoreland," and should illustrate the region's history of energy production. To be considered, artists should email dlamuth@ for an application, which is due by June 16. Sirofchuck's bell will be unveiled Aug. 10 outside the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg. The Murrysville bell does not have an unveiling date yet. Both will go on display officially throughout 2026 during the semiquincentennial. For more on anniversary preparations, see Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@
