AN AESTHETIC-POLITICAL BODY OF DEFENSE AND HELING OF THE COLONIAL WOUND

ON THE ÌYÁ OXUM IN THE OYÈRÓNKẸ OYĚWÙMÍ AND SOME AFRO-DIASPORIC ARTISTIC-SENSITIVE EXPERIENCES

Abstract

In this article I present together as an aesthetic-political body the study of Oyèrónkẹ Oyěwùmí and some of the Afro-diasporic art-sensitive figures. Both dealing with lucidity and potency effect an awareness of the harmful effects on the imaginary that historically perpetuate a coloniality. From this understanding, an epistemic re-orientation of decolonisation of knowledge occurs with the study of aesthetics, here taken as a politics of defending and healing the colonial wound. The article then focuses on the notion of Ìyá Oxum, from Oyèrónkẹ Oyěwùmí, in which it demonstrates how Afro-diasporic culture, specifically Yoruba, signifies both bodily metaphors and visual metaphors for the thinking and ethics of life. I also propose to think/feel the Afro-Diasporic artistic figures chosen because they are inspired from the cosmogonic influence of Oxum. These artistic figures return to ancestry to give aesthetic body to decolonization, effectively taking a place that gives visibility, legitimacy and authority to the lived experience. Approaches that through writing bring transmission of memory by the encounter of the practice of thought with the final objective to what we call from the beginning the defense and healing of the colonial wound.