For the story behind this and the skillfully executed painting, y'all need to have a ride of this too.
Artist: @adaobijenniferart
Theme: Nostalgia
TItle: Ori Okpa
Medium: Oil on canvas
I was told that the masquerade is called "ori okpa," meaning "the one who eats okpa." Throughout my beautiful childhood, I was entertained by this masquerade, yet I never saw it eat or have okpa. Yet, intriguingly, this is how I've dreamt and imagined the ori okpa.
To me the ori okpa brings home the memories of the festive period, coming back to the village for the holidays. Running around the village with my cousins building thatch houses and playing house.
The ori okpa is a cultural representation of Enugu (Nsukka), a form of entertainment that also carried with it a sense of terror. An ori okpa with a basket of steaming hot okpa straight from the land of the gods shouldn’t sound like a mere fairytale. I grew up eating okpa (orba Nsukka okpa), which was made as if by the gods themselves - my grandmother made okpa like she was possessed by the god of okpa!
As I grew older, I began to understand the deeper meaning of the ori okpa. It was not simply a source of entertainment, but a representation of the traditions and history of my people. It was a symbol of our culture, our heritage. As I watched the ori okpa dance and perform, I felt a sense of pride and belonging, of connection to something greater than myself. I felt a part of something timeless and eternal.
I’m sitting in my studio right now as a lady in her twenties and I miss , very much wish I could experience running around the village again with my siblings with a fairytale look out over our shoulders as we ran from an ori okpa that carried steaming hot okpa over his shoulders like “father Christmas “