Paper short abstract:

This paper uses the works of Abbas Ahuwan and Chris Echeta, both of whom live and work in urban areas of Nigeria but return to traditional pottery practices for inspiration, to support the thesis that “the paradigms of the pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial have become unworkable and impractical”.

Paper long abstract:

In the 1950s colonial Nigeria, the influential British potter Michael Cardew fostered a modern ceramics expression at the Pottery Training Centre, Abuja. There, local potters, such as Ladi Kwali and Asibi Iddo, were introduced to new materials and techniques with which they produced works that were unmistakably modern based on their synthesis of indigenous materials, forms and decorative techniques with Western ceramics ethos and technology. Since then, contemporary ceramics artists, many of whom live and work in urban areas, have continued to rely on the creative archives of local pottery practices for their work. This paper uses the ceramic sculptures of Abbas Ahuwan (who lives and works at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria but often returns to the village of Hunkuyi, Northern Nigeria, to create work in collaboration with 'traditional' potters) and Chris Echeta (who worked for many years in the urban areas of Oji River and Nsukka in South-eastern Nigeria, and currently in Nasarawa, Northern Nigeria, but continues to draw from Igbo traditional pottery and uli painting for his ceramic sculptures) as case studies in our examination of what can be considered "cosmolocal" ceramic art modernity in support of the observation that "the paradigms of the pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial have become unworkable and impractical".