“Our Gossip is Top Notch: An Interview with Judah Iyunade.” BlackFlash 41.3 (2025): 30-35.
The title of this interview is a line of dialogue from Judah Iyunade’s video How to Interpret the Masquerade (2024). This work was one component of a solo show titled “Alara” at the Centre for Cultural and Artistic Practices (C’cap) in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2024.1 I encountered this line in a slightly different iteration, as a photograph that I assumed was borrowing from the aesthetics of a split-screen video. The photograph consisted of two images, side-by-side, both featuring the artist wearing different costumes. In the left-hand image, the man is wearing a suit with a matching hat. He cups his hand in order to whisper something toward the image on the right. In the right-hand image, the artist is wearing a more traditional outfit, a white shirt with a patterned, gold vest and an embroidered fìla gọbi. He is holding a phone to his ear, leaning in close to listen to what is being spoken by the man on the left. Both images feature fabric backgrounds. Across the bottom of the photograph—holding both images together—is a text (in the form of a subtitle) reading: “Our gossip is top notch.”
This photograph was featured as part of a members’ show at aceartinc. and, upon viewing, it immediately took hold of my imagination, given my love of both petty gossip and Nollywood cinema. Have I been peddling low-grade, mediocre blather? Who are these guys with “top notch” gossip, and what secrets do they share? This image is the artistic equivalent of a friend telling you they know a secret—a really good one—but that they can’t possibly reveal it to you. At the time, I believed this was a stand-alone piece, as it was shown without context. The photograph was at once enigmatic, poetic, humorous, and confounding. I wanted more information, but photographic context is rarely self-contained within the frame. I came across the image once more in the aforementioned video, where it appears as split- screen footage, woven together with several narratives: the artist performing as a Gẹlẹdẹ masquerade performer, an actual Gẹlẹdẹ ceremony, a video made by the Manchester Museum with a Yoruba knowledge keeper providing cultural insights on the ceremonial purpose of the Gẹlẹdẹ masks presumably in the Museum’s collection. The voice-over reveals that the Gẹlẹdẹ functioned as a form of record, noting which families are entitled to chieftaincy titles. “So the Gẹlẹdẹ is a kind of gossiper,” someone asks, to which the knowledge keeper slyly responds in the affirmative, with the now well- rehearsed line: “Our gossip is top notch.”
The artist behind the photograph is Judah Iyunade, a Winnipeg-based, Nigerian-born photographer and filmmaker. His cinematic work blends experimental narration and lyrical visuals in order to invite the viewer to think through challenging ideas about representation, camaraderie, colo- nization, and living between cultures. The works are medi- tative and poetic, engaging with a history of independent filmmaking and photography practices in both Nigeria and the Prairies. His most recent work, Celia, is an experimental feature that is being produced with the support of the Black Film Collective (BFC). The following interview was conducted over Zoom and collaboratively edited into its current form.
Clint Enns (CE): How did you decide on the costumes and backgrounds in How to Interpret the Masquerade and in your photography in general?
Judah Iyunade (JI): I use backdrops and costumes inspired by West African photography produced in the postcolonial period. Currently, I am researching the motives for these backdrops and believe that beyond being simply an emanation of both the photographer and the subjects, they were also aspirational. For instance, consider Philip Kwame Apagya’s photograph When Will My Children Come? (1996- 2003), where a mother and her three children stand in front of a backdrop of an open fridge filled with beer and food, a television set (complete with remote control), JVC stereo equipment with a large speaker, VCR, and VHS tapes.
For How to Interpret the Masquerade, I used backdrops with pillars that look like they were from a Renaissance painting. I wanted to contrast the backdrop with the costumes of the men gossiping.
CE: Who are these men with the gossip?
JI: These men are me, but I am playing two different char- acters: my grandfathers. One of my grandfathers was a priest, and the other was a performer. It can be read as a self-portrait, but the idea came from a dream I had about my grandfathers talking to each other. The costumes were inspired both by photographs and memories of them.
CE: What are they gossiping about?
JI: In the video, a voice-over refers to the Gẹlẹdẹ as a kind of gossiper who is peddling hereditary hierarchies. In my dream, the conversation was fragmented and distorted.
CE: Both the video and your photography in “Alara” seem to be an extension of West African studio portraiture. I can see elements of photographer Seydou Keïta, who was famous for his innovative use of props and backdrops, in your work. In contrast to your photographs, he worked exclusively in black-and-white and famously stopped taking photographs when colour became popular. Your art embraces colour and moves between different times. Who are some of your artistic influences from this tradition? Who are some of your cinematic influences
JI: In terms of West African photography, I am influenced by the work of Philip Kwame Apagya, Samuel Fosso, Malick Sidibé, Sanlé Sory, and of course, Seydou Keïta. In terms of cinema, I will watch anything, but I am specifically excited by slow and transcendental cinema. I love Béla Tarr and Paul Schrader, both of whom understand cinema’s meditative power. For me, if inspired, films can be a form of church, a spiritual experience.
I am not particularly interested in dialogue and feel that the other components of cinema are what provide actual depth. For example, think about an emotion like grief. A dialogue about grief does not allow for the viewer to experience it; however, it is possible to convey this emotion through other aspects of the medium. I often blend prairie and West African aesthetics. I am very excited by Prairie filmmakers like Guy Maddin, Rhayne Vermette, Heidi Phillips, and Aaron Zeghers. Heidi is a very spiritual filmmaker, and I feel our works have affinities, plus we worked together at Video Pool Media Arts Centre.
CE: “Our Gossip is Top Notch” could have been a still from a Nollywood video. Do you see your work in conversation with Nollywood cinema?
JI: Honestly, I don’t know. There is a difference between inde- pendent Nigerian cinema and the Nollywood tradition, and I am more interested in the former. I think the acting is great in Nollywood films, but in general, the scripts are poor. I am more excited by filmmakers like Tunde Kelani who I grew up watching and who I got to meet since he was good friends with my mom’s boss. He is a Nigerian director who has made films since the 1980s and works outside the Nollywood tra- dition. He even worked on Adeyemi Afolayan’s classic Taxi Driver 2 (1987). He is still making films.
CE: In your film, Transcension (2021), the poem by Ruby Chijioke-Nwauche begins by cleverly paraphrasing a line by American poet Mark Strand:
In a field / I am the absence of field.
I am always what is missing. ((Mark Strand, “Keeping Things Whole,” Selected Poems (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 10.))
She turns the poem upside-down by applying this form of absence to white spaces that render people of colour invisible or without a voice. Do you see Winnipeg’s art scene like this?
JI: Yes. At this very moment, we are at a fairly stable time; however, everything is fragile and real change is slow. For instance, although aceartinc. itself is in a better place, artists of colour are still facing the consequences of speaking out over the controversy a few years back. Winnipeg is a small scene. In a racist city, art spaces should be safe havens, and they still aren’t. On the other side of things, I wouldn’t have been able to make my most recent film if the Black Film Collective didn’t exist. Ninety percent of the cast and crew is from the BFC. It’s not about the funding; it’s about actual support and care. Each of us contributed to the project, including props, rentals, and gas money. Everyone made sacrifices and ev- eryone was excited to be part of it. It is an experiment in collective filmmaking.
CE: The poem makes effective use of the personal “I” and the universal “we.” We can feel the pain and anger she feels from both past and present colonial injustices, and how this impacts the way she is perceived, but we can also recog- nize her resilience in the face of generational trauma. At the same time, the audience is confronted by a form of colonial “calling out,” as being the one who erases languages, pillages art, and corrupts tribes.
I am the languages you erased.
The art you stole.
The film is both affective and effective since the viewer is simultaneously empathetic and under scrutiny. Of course, the “you” being addressed are the systematic structures themselves, while the “I” is a stand-in for the voices of resistance.
This is revealed at the end as the text invites the audience to embody multiple, sometimes contradictory subjectivities at once.
I am thousands of slaves risking their lives for freedom
I am Ferguson
I am Selma
I am Minnesota, on fire, burning
In the film, you showcase your photography aesthetics using Winnipeg apartment buildings as the backdrop, instead of fabric. What role do you see Winnipeg playing in this work?
JI: Winnipeg is one of the best examples of Canadian colonialism in practice. Simply look at the amount of Indigenous people living on the streets or the Indigenous women who turn up in the Red River. The film was shot against this backdrop.
Ruby made the poem. That is, the poem was a response to the images in the film. Colonialism is a global problem; whether you are in Nigeria or Winnipeg, there are residues in both places. This film was made during the lockdown. It was depressing to be stuck in Winnipeg, despite my weird attachment to the city. I wouldn’t have pursued being an artist if I wasn’t living in Winnipeg.
CE: Can you talk about the four-act structure (Act I: Identity, Act II: Colonial Obsessions, Act III: Sunset, Act IV: Final Form) of Transcension, where we begin with the sky and end at the water? While Chijioke-Nwauche’s poem suggests revolutionary transcendence, your images seem to suggest spiritual transcendence starting with a horrific image of a man seemingly stuck in a chair in the middle of an apartment hallway and ending with a man cleansing himself in Lake Winnipeg. What do you see as being transcended?
JI: I associated the ending, a person walking into the water, as a form of sanctuary and freedom. Is it possible for the Red River to be the Blue Sea?
I think of the natural settings as a form of anti-backdrop or anti-set. Celia is explicitly exploring the contrast between set and anti-set, but you can see some of that in this film as well.2
CE: Ori Mi Agbe (My Head) (2021) takes place in a dream space, somewhere between a depressing reality and a sleep state. It is slightly subversive—it is not a dream from another place, but another place or frame of mind brought to Winnipeg.
JI: The film was shot during the pandemic. It is a nightmare where a creature takes us into another realm. “Ori” is the Yoruba word used to describe a vessel that processes conscious thought. The rhythmic and repetitive sound is unedited, a prayer in Yoruba.
In your head, there is a spirit that can work for or against you. The prayer in the film is meant to ensure the spirit doesn’t work against you. You must appease the spirit in your head to make sure it is working for you. Although you can’t go against your fortune since it is preordained, you can get the spirit in your head to work with you.
CE: The film presents a gap in understanding between Western viewers and Nigerian frames in terms of cultural references and language; however, it also has affinities with experimental cinema, in particular, with the trance film. Was it a deliberate gesture not to subtitle the work? Do you see it as a trance film or in that tradition?
JI: There is just too much nuance to subtitle the prayer. Subtitles would do a disservice since the sound is meant to induce a spiritual state. You are correct, the film is intended to produce a trance-like state in the viewer. I think it is possible for people to connect to the film without necessarily understanding the words of the poem.
CE: I like your use of filmic emulation in your work, mimicking Super 8 and 16mm. Do you shoot Super 8? Is the emulation just to keep some aesthetic consistency, or do you see it as playing another role?
JI: WNDX festival has been very influential to my practice, and this year I made a Super 8 film called Staring Into Darkness for the One Take Super 8 Event. In general, I like film aesthetics, and my work feels flat or incomplete without it. But I can’t afford to shoot on film; it is just too expensive. Most people can’t tell the difference between emulated emulsion and real emulsion, if it is done well. Plus, it places the work in a different tradition.
CE: I was wondering why the Black Diaspora Cinema Archive has no films made in Canada, in particular, the films of Winnipeg filmmaker Winston Moxam. ((The Black Diaspora Cinema Archive is a collection of films compiled by Judah Iyunade. The infor- mal archive contains links to over three hundred films and features a wide range of work, from canonical films made as part of L.A. Rebellion to contemporary arthouse music videos. The works are labelled as: Feature Film, Documentary, and Revolutionary/Liberation. The archive can be accessed here.)) What are your criteria for inclusion?
JI: Winston isn’t on the list since his films aren’t available online. I should probably add Bisong Taiwo since he is an active Winnipeg filmmaker who is worth checking out. The list points out that there is Nigerian cinema beyond Nollywood. Nigeria has its own arthouse, and there was cinema being produced in Nigeria long before Nollywood existed. Ultimately, I made this list as a teaching/learning device. You learn to be a better filmmaker by watching films.
- Luther Konadu, “Alara: A Solo Exhibition by Judah Iyunade,” Centre for Cultural and Artistic Practices. “Alara” in Yoruba is a word that translates to “the performer” or, in some other understandings, “a magician,” someone capable of summoning presences other than their own. In some transla- tions, the word “ara” can mean “family” in Yoruba and is also the suffix of “Alara,” giving it another meaning: the performer of family, that is, one who represents the family, or the head of a family. [↩]
- The film has since been re-titled to Àwọ̀ ojú ọ̀run (The Colour of the Sky). [↩]