Oluwasemilore Delano

My great-grandfather was a renowned writer. I met him here, in Oxford.

“My claim for this book is its truth. My narrative is right in matters of fact and true in a higher sense, for it conveys the impression truly received during my tour…I write about people and places as I saw them.”

Delano, Isaac.O. (1944). Notes and Comments from Nigeria 

“A remarkable superstition; Dreams have become the subject of technical study. Clairvoyance is now studied and accepted among us; Spiritualism has its limitations. But I am impatient of the shallowness of superstition as its fulfilment is always too farfetched. Things have to be inferred. They are not the dream of the sleeper, nor the ideal of a man awake. They are the conjecture of tradition. 

Delano, Isaac.O. (1937). The Soul of Nigeria.

All books were found in the Radcliffe Camera, Oxford University, originally in the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth & African Studies at Rhodes House. 

“The result is that there may be slight discords between the really interesting matters and the way I narrate them.”

I understand my work through the histories that persist in my life. Versions of memory appear in the mind in a non-linear fashion registering different bizarre forms of the past which obstruct and fissure the present, to that end, I feel as though I am constantly operating on Lagos time. My work explores how wayward time affects and frustrates chronology, creating the illegibilities of life when living away from home. Questions often guide my practice as they hold space for phenomena to move and play. My current question is: What is a Black rainbow? It examines lineage, family archives, citational practices, Black ontology, and what I call the Black redi-made using charcoal, concrete, oil, black interfaces, textures, and objects.

Personal website.