Where really is home?

I was born in Nigeria, studied, lived, and worked in Europe for almost three decades. I now live, once again, in Nigeria. Unlike many of my compatriots today who leave to find a better life elsewhere due to the harsh political and economic situation, I left at a very young age when the decision was taken on my behalf. I never thought I would be away from home for such a long time. Five years became ten and then turned into fifteen which stretched to twenty years. Within this period my new home seemed to impose a variety of identities on me.

From being a Nigerian of Yoruba origin I became an African and my place of origin was of little importance to people who saw Africa as one geographical mass in which knowledge of the individual countries was of little interest. I remember that when people asked where I came from and I answered Nigeria and I would watch the glazed look on their face. Then I would add Africa and somehow their face would light up again. I usually translated it to mean that at least they had heard of some place called Africa. With the rise of Black as a collective political rather than a racial appellation for African, African Caribbean, and Asian artists in the UK in the mid to late 80s I assumed somewhat uncomfortably the identity Black. By then I had lived in Europe for over 15 years and felt distanced from my Nigerian origins. In between I also went to live and study in France where I became an Anglophone (British African) when I wasn’t confused with being an African American.

As an adult my work in the visual arts, my contact with artists, my research revolved around the key issues of identity, place, home, mobility which was explored in many exhibitions and through the works of artists who were and continue to be modern day nomads. Within this context the discomfort with my imposed identities heightened and the idea of home and belonging began to percolate in my mind. Questions such as "is where I am now home," "could somewhere else become home," or "was I just wishing that the grass was greener elsewhere" and, but most importantly, "could real home (which I still consider it after twenty five years living elsewhere) my place of original be or become my home again." I went in search of home, for a space and a place where I felt at ease physically and psychologically. I started to make frequent visits to Nigeria starting with short 2 week stays that became longer on subsequent trips stretching from 1 month to 3 or 4 months interspersed with visits to other African countries. In 2002, I relocated to Lagos after nearly thirty years away.

Where really is home? Home is where you can assume a multitude of identities—Yoruba, Lagosian, Nigerian, African—and not feel weighed down because they are all appropriate. When people ask me where home is, I answer Lagos. The glazed look is no longer my problem but theirs.

—Bisi Silva, Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos