“There Is a Creative Side to Everyone” In addition to lectures, music, and film, the Edward W. Said Days present an exhibition of works by the photographer, author, and curator Akinbode Akinbiyi. In his images—also found in this program book— we encounter unsettling depictions of movement that always ask the same question: Where and what is home? Amel Ouaissa spoke with the artist.
These three days focus on the subject of counterpoint—in musical terms, the combination of several voices that are harmonically interdependent, yet melodically and rhythmically independent. Do you see such contrapuntal ideas in your own work as well? I’ve been thinking about this ever since I received the invitation to the Edward W. Said Days, but I don’t seem to have reached a conclusion. My way of seeing things always implies a certain give and take: I look at something, I experience it, but I observe it not only from my own point of view, but from different perspectives. This often results in contrasts, counterpoints, if you will, that complement each other. In general as a human being, I strive for harmony, but there isn’t only one way to find and to explore this harmony.This is why I always try to remain open to many different aspects and approaches to a certain phenomenon—an image, in my case. According to Said, anything that has a capacity for a plurality of voices can be contrapuntal—including the state of exile. He didn’t necessarily consider exile as a harmonic construct or a harmonic reality, but rather saw it as a restlessness, a way of being driven or a state of driving others.The exiled person is happy, so to speak, with this notion of “unhappiness”… I can relate very well to this definition of exile. Especially today, there are so many refugees; it has taken on a terrible dimension, and many of them do not really feel at home in the societies that take them in. Personally, I see myself as a wanderer—but I know that the possibility of wandering is a certain privilege. Wanderers always bring their own baggage, their biographies, their experiences. It’s important to accept these experiences and realities, these people as equals, and perhaps walk a bit of the way with them.You begin to see the world in a 64
