Whip Not Child

an international art project by

Chidi Kwubiri (Germany)/Mike Omoighe (Nigeria)
Ade Bantu (Nig/Ger), Uche James Iroha (Nig), Ema Enyang (Nig)
in interaction with children and youths in Nigeria

Child abuse in Africa

This project addresses a topic that is just as up-to-date as it is highly charged: corporal punishment and child abuse in Africa, particularly in schools and other educational institutions. This is indeed a global problem, as despite the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in many states, and not only in Africa, the corporal punishment of children is still not prohibited. As studies such as the UN Study of Violence Against Children show, even today children and youths are subject to punishments such as beatings with sticks, whips or belts – even though the physical and psychological injuries, and the lasting damage these punishments inflict, are well known. Children are particularly powerless in the face of violence by educators as they are not only physically but also legally defenceless. This is why more and more initiatives and organisations are being created worldwide to protect children’s rights and to promote the public awareness it will require to remedy this injustice. The ‘whip not child’ project seeks to contribute to this movement by using art to draw attention to the problem – in a language that is internationally understood.

‘WHIP NOT CHILD!’

The project by a group of Nigerian artists combines art and documentation, culture and social awareness, Africa and Europe. The artists want to focus on educational practices in schools and children’s homes and present their findings – supplemented by school pupils’ artistic expressions as well as works of their own on the topic of corporal punishment and child abuse – in an art exhibition. The  project is sponsored by several well known charitable and non-profit organisations  ( e.g. GTZ    “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit” - Germany (an international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development), IFA - “Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen” - Germany (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations),  Rotary Club, Pulheim - Germany, Kulturamt Köln - Germany (Cultural Department of the City of Cologne) and the Goethe Institute Lagos - Nigeria. Numerous Nigerian media organisations and WDR (Germany) have communicated their interest on a coverage of the project.

The subsequent presentation of the exhibition in Germany will give the European public access to the results of the art project and its documentation.

The project comprises three stages:

I. An art project with children and youths

The artists will  visit several schools in Lagos and carry out workshops with groups of approx. 20-30 pupils in February 2010 (5 days). The appropriate arrangements have already been made with the schools. These workshops will give the pupils an opportunity to express their own personal thoughts or experiences of abuse and humiliation through corporal punishment, and to draw on these thoughts or experiences in their own artworks. Under the guidance of the artists, they will create paintings, photographs, videos and media installations themselves, or share in their creation. Journalists of various media will be invited to attend the workshops, providing news coverage of the workshops and the works of art, as well as of the subsequent exhibition. The concept thus transcends the creative work with children and youths, as this survey will gather an authentic information about child abuse in educational institutions and make this information available to the public.

II. Exhibition in Lagos (Nigeria) – in Cooperation with the Goethe Institute

After the workshops, the artworks and documentation will be collected and evaluated and the results will be presented to the public in an exhibition in Lagos, opening on 27^th of February 2010. The intention of the artists is not to conduct a sociological study nor any psychological analysis on the subject. Though they are quite interested in any interdisciplinary collaboration and incorporating findings by humanitarian and scholarly institutions in their project. The exhibition is comprised of several components: on display will be a selection of works of the children and a documentation of their experiences, along with artworks by the artists that draw upon their own autobiographical experiences and impressions of the issue – resulting in an authentic statement of the facts and information, in documentary and artistic form. As the topic is highly charged, the organisers anticipate broad media resonance, a fact for which, not least, the internationally renowned artists’ names vouch.

III. Presentation of the exhibition in Germany

The concept will come to a conclusion in a presentation of the project in Germany, where an exhibition will be held in late summer 2010. It will include a documentation on the workshops, the subsequent exhibition, the response in the press and the public. A catalogue is planned, which will contain the works displayed together with a final report on the art project and supplemental information on corporal punishment and child abuse in Africa. To ensure that the information gathered will be made accessable and well perceived in Germany as well, invitees to the exhibition will include journalists, representatives of humanitarian and charitable organisations, and figures in politics, education and the business community. This should prompt an exchange among authorities in the area, together with a discussion about the use and aims of support and aid in Africa – an exchange that, in the end, enacts the interactive approach to which the artists aspire.

Project initiator: Chidi Kwubiri +234 80 29150134

Mike Omoighe +234 80 37194129

Projekt coordinator/PR Germany: Elissavet Hasse (Germany)

Project Management: DAKO e.V. (Germany)