Before PlayStation and Xbox: How Deolu Femi Preserves African Childhood Through Contemporary Paper Art by Miabo Enyadike
Before PlayStation and Xbox: How Deolu Femi Preserves African Childhood Through Contemporary Paper Art
When discussions about African heritage begin, they often focus on kingdoms, architecture, languages, and historical monuments. Yet some of the most significant parts of African identity exist within ordinary childhood experiences that were never formally documented.
Nigerian contemporary artist Deolu Femi is changing that narrative.
At the Artmiabo International Art Festival (AMIAF) 2026, themed African Art, Heritage & Legacy, Femi presents Before PlayStation and Xbox, a remarkable body of layered paper sculptures exploring how childhood games became powerful foundations for African identity and community.
Childhood as Cultural Memory
Rather than approaching childhood with nostalgia, Deolu Femi treats it as an archive of shared African experience.
His work revisits familiar games such as Tinko Tinko, Ten Ten, Suwe, and In and Out, activities that once transformed neighbourhood streets and school playgrounds into spaces of learning, imagination, and social development. These games taught cooperation, patience, confidence, resilience, and belonging long before digital entertainment became dominant.
Paper as a Living Archive
Working primarily with paper, Femi employs cutting, layering, folding, and accumulation to construct sculptural reliefs that echo the layered nature of memory itself.
His meticulous process reflects how identity develops over time. Each layer represents experiences carried from childhood into adulthood, while the spaces between them symbolize absence, remembrance, and emotional depth.
Paper becomes more than a material, it becomes memory made tangible.
More Than Nostalgia
One of the strengths of Before PlayStation and Xbox is that it avoids romanticising the past.
Instead, it asks urgent questions:
- What cultural knowledge disappears when communal play fades?
- How do societies preserve traditions passed through participation rather than written records?
- Can everyday childhood experiences become part of Africa's cultural legacy?
These questions align directly with AMIAF 2026's theme by expanding the definition of heritage beyond monuments and ceremonies to include ordinary moments that shaped generations.
African Heritage Beyond Monuments
Each artwork in the series documents a different aspect of communal life.
Tinko Tinko celebrates rhythm, friendship, and collective participation.
Ten Ten explores instinct, movement, and confidence.
Suwe reflects patience, discipline, and determination.
After Round One captures suspense, anticipation, and shared excitement.
In and Out highlights cooperation, imagination, and the collective language of play.
Together, these works reveal that Africa's greatest cultural treasures are not always physical objects. Sometimes they exist in memories shared across generations.
A Powerful Contribution to AMIAF 2026
As the Artmiabo International Art Festival celebrates African Art, Heritage & Legacy, Deolu Femi reminds audiences that heritage is also found in neighbourhood streets, school compounds, and playgrounds where values were passed naturally from child to child.
His layered paper sculptures preserve experiences that many Africans recognize instantly but few have ever seen represented in contemporary art.
By transforming childhood memory into museum-quality sculpture, Deolu Femi expands our understanding of what deserves preservation.
His work demonstrates that African heritage is not only inherited through monuments or historical artifacts.
It also survives through shared experiences, collective memory, and the stories we continue to tell.
Experience Deolu Femi and other leading contemporary African artists at the Artmiabo International Art Festival 2026, taking place from 28 September to 1 October 2026 at the FCT Exhibition Pavilion, 900 Herbert Macaulay Way, Opposite Radio House, Beside International Conference Centre, Central Business District, Garki, Abuja.
Join us at the Artmiabo International Art Festival Abuja
Date: 28th Sept - 1 Oct 2026
Venue: FCT Abuja Exhibition Pavilion, Herbert Macauley Way, Garki.
Time: 6pm VIP view, 1O am daily
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artmiabo_festival/
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