ABOUT THE MANGROVE ARTS FOUNDATION
Founded by British-Nigerian artist and curator, Zina Saro-Wiwa, The Mangrove Arts Foundation uses food, art, research and environmentally-focused projects to regenerate the maligned Niger Delta. The Niger Delta is a region of global importance to the world’s oil economy but has seen scandalously little development and is beset by a vicious cycle of violence, corruption and ongoing pollution. Historically, however, this is a place rich in cultural and artistic traditions with a dramatically diverse and hugely fertile ecosystem that, for local economic survival and for global posterity, must be protected, revived and developed.
The Mangrove Arts Foundation is inspired by the legacy left behind by the founder’s father Ken Saro-Wiwa. Ken was a writer, businessman, and renaissance man. He was also one of Africa’s premier environmentalists. He campaigned peacefully for the rights of the Ogoni people whose land was being polluted and devastated without shame or consequence by international oil companies like Shell Oil and their activities were propped up by the military regime. A regime that against their better judgement and international condemnation hanged Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 other innocent Ogoni men in a bid to silence them. This tragic and powerful legacy has inspired many around the world. But for Ken’s artist daughter Zina this legacy is a deeper one than being anti-oil: “Whilst cleaning up oil spillage and offering remuneration is extremely important, it is vital to interpret his legacy more powerfully, dynamically and imaginatively. This means we have to turn to the power of culture.”
The Mangrove Arts Foundation is dedicated to facilitating opportunities for artists, farmers, writers and entrepreneurs to create powerful new opportunities for economic growth, education and storytelling in the magical Niger Delta. Profound storytelling and research into the cultural and historical legacy of the Niger Delta is the pathway to long-lasting restitution.
The Mangrove Arts Foundation have a brace of projects that have been in development or in practise since 2013. MAF Founder Zina Saro-Wiwa says: “I believe in culture as the most effective means to providing the route out of any economic or political quagmire. Culture is the root of the matter and the operating system. If you do not tackle this first then dealing with anything else is like throwing money, time and energy into a deep well. The NGO sector when it operates in Africa is sadly often disconnected from the notion of our having any cultural power in Africa. It is invested in our victimhood. This sits uncomfortably in a time when Africa is flexing her cultural muscle in a serious way. There needs to be a joined up approach to tackling the problem of the region. The art and culture sector I feel is profoundly important and it is doing what I call root work. This is about deep listening. Not only to people but to the land.”
MAF believes in administering highly specific cultural projects that excite people on the ground and inspire people around the world and we take a cutting edge approach to cultural restitution. We believe in working with their existing but often untapped creative capacities and operate on the notion that there are so many stories and untold opportunities to be found in the flora, fauna and in the minds of the people that inhabit this sacred but maligned land. It is through our cultural projects that we uncover new opportunities for enterprise and employment, uncover and nurture our latent creative and entrepreneurial geniuses, preserve and replenish our natural environment and challenge the damaging poverty-based storytelling of Africa.
Zina Saro-Wiwa says: “I want to move away from the empty well approach to ‘saving Africa’ and invest in the ‘rich soil’ approach. Mangrove Arts Foundation represents rich soil and a belief in the fact of and potential for Africa and the Niger Delta to surprise and transform not only ourselves but the world.” Through our arts and food projects we will give back to the world: new art works; a population better educated about it’s own history with a way of envisioning the future through art practises; a region that sees a way out of endemic violence as well as a powerful contribution to the global conversation about environmentalism and the anthropocene.