Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World (2000)

ISSN: 1525-447X

WHERE WE'RE AT: LIFE AFTER MARCH 2000

Nkiru Nzegwu

It is a pleasure to report that the first issue of Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World was a spectacular success. The number of visitors to the site has been astronomical and so has been the rate of information download. In the short pace of its existence, a Swedish librarian making a list of important e-journals described it as the finest online academic journal. We learned too that All-Academic indexes the journal, and that it is among the journals in the academic journal database of the International Consortium Alternative Academic Publishing (ICAAP). To our delight, we discovered during an Internet search that many university libraries (as far away as Australia, Switzerland and Sweden) have linked up to IJELE. Subscribers too have come from different parts of the world, namely, Belgium, Canada, Australia, Finland, the United States, Nigeria, Britain, and South Africa. While some of this traffic is the result of our strategic alliance with ICAAP, we would like to think that quite a bit of it is the result of the quality of our offerings.

We are especially pleased that many of our visitors are from different countries in Africa: Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana and more. After reading all the near negative assessment about Internet connectivity in Africa, we were quite concerned that traffic from that region would be exceptionally low. Although there is tremendous room for Internet growth in Africa, we are quite happy at the level of access from the countries in Africa. We remain optimistic that this will continue to grow. For now, our goal is to devise ways for artists' and scholars in Africa to participate in our multiple discussions on art and creative production. To this end, we are very happy to announce that one of the members of our Editorial Committee, Dr. Fadhili Mshana, has returned to his old position at the University of Dar es Salaam. Before his return, Dr. Mshana accepted to be the on-ground representative for IJELE in East Africa and to coordinate activities from there. We are exploring all options as we seek local contacts in other parts of Africa and the world.

Quite a number of significant things have happened since our debut in March. A member of our advisory board, Dr. Emmanuel Arinze, was appointed the director of the National Council of Art and Culture (NCAC) in Nigeria. In congratulating him, we wish him the very best in his efforts to revamp the NCAC and to articulate an effective national policy for the arts. Chinwe Uwatse, our other Nigeria-resident member of the editorial board is currently identifying some Nigerian female artists who are producing exciting works. We are featuring the work of Ebele Okoye and Nkechi Nwosu-Igbo in this issue, and in the next issue the works of Juliet Ezenwa and Angela Japhet Isiuwe will be profiled. We would also like to recognize the contributions to the growth and development of African American art of two of our patrons, Dr. Samella Lewis and Evangeline J. Montgomery. Both Grand Dames have been exceptionally busy in the exhibition circuit. Not only have their works been shown in a significant number of noteworthy exhibitions, they have also coordinated a number of exhibitions. The outstanding exhibition curated by Dr. Lewis', When the Spirit Moves: African American Art Inspired by Dance, is being toured nationally.

We would like to take this occasion to welcome, Dr. Phyllis J. Jackson of Pomona College, as our Film Review Editor. Under her watch film reviews, which will begin in the third issue, will cover movies that are "products of the African creative mind/hand and those dreaded but culturally influential Hollywood renderings of Africaness/Blackness, as well as movies that draw on both streams." We are delighted that Dr. Jackson appreciates the importance of cinema as an integral part of our artistic and aesthetic traditions and that she has accepted the challenge of working with us as a review editor. Also, we take this opportunity to announce that our editor, Dr. Ikem Stanley Okoye, is moving from Northwestern University to the University of Delaware. We wish him a happy stay in his new job.

In each issue, we will endeavor to introduce some technical changes that, we believe, will enhance the quality of the journal as well as enrich the reading experience of our subscribers. We are currently exploring dynamic ways to deliver images and information in a more interesting manner. Because we are aware of the slow upload time of dial-up networks, we will introduce these changes slowly. In this issue, for instance, some of the images will be on time-line. This means we are presenting them as fully automated slide-shows. You do not have to click any button to change the image; it will be done automatically. To ensure an unhurried viewing, the images have been carefully paced to allow viewers to fully appreciate one image before another replaces it. We expect to hear from you if these changes do not meet with your approval. However, we hope that you will appreciate and enjoy them.

For this issue too, you will find that the images for each article will be on a separate page, with anchor links that take you to the exact image under discussion. The introduction of this format is guided by pedagogical considerations. In the old format, the images in the articles were available as pop-up images, a procedure that eliminated the possibility of visually comparing images. In this new format, by contrast, the images are on pages so that stylistic comparisons can readily be made. The only downside to this change is that the Acrobat pdf files will not have the images at the end of the essay, as is presently the case now. So, we expect to see more of you at the site!

Finally, in this issue we initiate some of our vision about "Art in the Africa World" means. We are bringing you discussions from Puerto Rico, Nigeria, and the United States. We are especially pleased to showcase the art of Juan Sánchez, whose works are firmly grounded in the nationalist politics of Puerto Rico and the regional politics of Americanism. Sánchez works raise complex questions about nationalism and the construction of Puerto Rican identity that effaces the legacy of Africa in the culture. At the same time, his visual analysis connects with a myriad of issues that artists in different nations of Africa have experienced. While Africa is being erased in some places, some diasporic artists are using specific cultures of the continent to construct an empowered identity in the Americas. The ways these artists are invoking and interacting with Africa is extensively explored in the essay on memory and Pan-Africanism, specifically in the works of three artists, Evangeline J. Montgomery, Ademola Olugebefola, and Moyo Okediji. The Africa-centered politics of some of these artists receive closer attention in the examination of the art of Mel Edwards, a distinguished African American sculptor. Together with the exhibition on Odigwe Ben Enwonwu, the late internationally renowned Nigeria artist, these essays and interviews provide further materials for fruitful discussion of the ways artists in the African world are linked by themes on nationalism, independence, and self-actualization.

Citation Format

Nzegwu, Nkiru. (2000). WHERE WE'RE AT: LIFE AFTER MARCH 2000. Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World: 1 , 2.