In the second edition of the Black Muse Art Festival, themed For Those Who Astonish The Gods, The House That Words Built, a participatory installation housed in the newly commissioned Ázágbà Pavilion (by Architect Juachi Obi) )at the Black Muse Sculpture Park was presented. The House That Words Built – a special project commissioned for the festival – we understand that the work of wonder – especially for the gods – will always be communal, and how we have chosen to astonish the gods is through gratitude, expressed in word and in deed.

The installation was engineered to pay homage to the many creative pioneers who paved the way. Who made work in our image and reflected our histories back to us in the books, the sculptures, the films, the music, the photographs, the paintings e.t.c To the many hands who provided us with new ways of seeing.

In our house, the question, “who is your ancestor?” preceded all conversations. This question not only became the cornerstone for all our ruminations, it also facilitated the tracing of each of our creative lineages, making way for the barter of creative histories between housemates. Housemates would end up writing a letter to an ancestor. 

Each letter contained gratitude and testaments: a demonstration of the footprints we are leaving behind and all our efforts geared towards pushing the creative canon further. In the end, participants collectively clipped their letters to the suspended ropes with binder clips in our house, performing the act of building together. In our house, we had tree stumps, unoccupied, reserved for the gods to rest on whilst they marvel at the house of praise and pledge we built for them.

In our house, gratitude was in the writing; deed was in the collective building. What was important is that we were doing it; what was more important, was that we were doing it together.