Post-Sydney conference has been busy with the final teaching week of Trimester 2 which means saying good-bye to classes and completing final assessment marking (*PHEW!*). On the PhD front, I’ve been working on my Ethics Application and putting together a Continuing Scholarship application to go full-time starting next year. During research, I found the below article about Nigerian bicycle decoration in a journal called Africa Arts. It is a blast from the past (1999), but I was delighted to see art bikes being featured in research literature. It gave me hope for academia …and a few ideas for a possible journal article! Below are a few of the more interesting creative highlights from the article. Enjoy! NG.

This week I was stoked to find this article:

Renne, E., & Usman, D. (1999). Bicycle Decoration and Everyday Aesthetics in Northern Nigeria. African Arts, 32(2), 46-92. doi: 10.2307/3337602.

This article starts with a discussion about “the dichotomy perceived to exist between objects considered to be every-day items and those considered to be traditional artworks is artificial in the Northern Nigerian context” (p. 46) and was written to probe the “continuity between the refined and intensified forms of experience that are works of art and the everyday events, doings, and sufferings” (Dewey 1934 p. 3).

Ultimately, the aim of this paper is to explore how the decoration of bicycles and the display of other everyday things in Northern Nigeria reflect an aesthetic process whereby the artist’s technical mastery of materials and creative innovation evokes a pleasurable response in the viewer.

Bicycle Decoration in Northern Nigeria

Essentially, there are two main ways locals Zaria and Jos (Northern Nigeria) decorate their bike:

1. Traditional decoration (has 3 steps)

Step 1: Cloth or paper is used to cover the frame of the bike.  Cloth is more expensive, but is washable.

Step 2: The frame is then painted usually in two contrasting colours.

Step 3: Decorative accessories are used for embellishments. These include handlebar tassels, mudguard decorations, fringed seat covers and pedals, plastic flowers and stickers.

2. Stickers only (new style)

Increasingly, coloured and metallic stickers are being used to completely cover the bike. The advantage here is that Day-Glo stickers can be incorporated into the design for increased night riding safety.

It should be noted that when the authors talk about ‘stickers’, they are referring mainly to sticky tape and vinyl/plastic type adhesive stickers (see picture below). The colours and designs of the stickers strongly reflect the local cultural aesthetic – which is best seen incorporated into the local architecture.

Given that this article was published in 1999, there was little access and variety to what we know as ‘stickers’ today.  Even so, the idea of covering a bike in stickers still works, especially considering sticker today express messages individually, as well as en masse. So great thought could be applied to the placement, arrangement, colour and the overall message that the owner wants to convey if they were using today’s vast array of sticker types.

Creative take-aways

I found this study interesting as it was focused on the skill of art and craft as a specific cultural signifier – whilst equally emphasising the everyday practicality of bicycles (used as tools, objects and transportation) as being something that is both beautify and functional.

There were a few design, aesthetics and creative approaches to embellishing objects (such as bikes) that were particularly interesting, for example, the concepts of:

• conveying a feeling of balance, but not necessarily symmetry
• creating a sense of balance amidst uncertainly
• fusing material and ideas through technical aptitude
• Gell’s  (1992) observation that “the awe inspired by the unimaginable technological transformation of materials is akin to being charmed or enchantment” – suggesting an almost magical, anthropomorphic quality to the bicycle designs
• that unity in design is temporary
• Bamana carver-sculptor have a spirit-mentor to guide their practice and need to show technical aptitude as well as visual imagination to be successful

I also love the idea that bike artists can pursue an ‘aesthetic impulse’ and in decorating a bike there are opportunities for ‘resistance’, such as “striving for discontinuity and disorder”, “novelty in action” and expressing a “greater range and depth of insight and increase poignancy in feeling”.

A bit of cultural context

In Northern Nigeria where this study took place, bicycles are ubiquitous.

They are commonly are associated with long-distance trading and with ritual practices that express certain social (brides ride the handlebars of their grooms bicycles to go to their husband’s houses), psychological  (unsafe riding in rural villages suggests mental health issues) and/or literary (bicycles feature in well-known poetry) and political (bicycles were used in a range of political demonstrations) in  states.

In the local language, the term kaya is described as an “invaluable word [that] can be used to mean almost anything”, although it may be loosely translated as”load” or as objects related to a certain activity. Thus, just as kayan doki refers to articles associated with horses (doki), kayan keke refers to decorative things associated with bicycles (keke). In the past bicycles have been referred to as dokin k’arfe – or ‘horse of iron’ – which I think it quite apt!

Renne, E., & Usman, D. (1999). Bicycle Decoration and Everyday Aesthetics in Northern Nigeria. African Arts, 32(2), 46-92. doi: 10.2307/3337602.

Full article: Bicycle Decoration in Northern Nigeria (Renne & Usman, 1999)