Susanne Wenger: Early photo on Ọjà Oǹtótóo

Susanne Wenger is shown relaxing in the Osun Grove with a child on her lap and a man seated next to her, most likely in the late 1970s. The child is Adebisi Nurudeen, son of Adebisi Akanji, one of the leading artists of the New Sacred Art Movement, which Wenger founded in Osogbo in the 1960s. The man in this early photograph is Saka Aremu, creator of the over 40 sculptures of Ọjà Oǹtótóo, where they are seated. It is an 'amphitheatre'- a large flat rock surface populated by these larger than life cement sculptures. The vision was to create an intimate space within the Groves where dance and drumming performances would be held and both traditionalists and the community could mix. These works by Saka Aremu are of drummers, hunters, an elephant rider, a large mother stretched out on the ground with her small child, snakes and tortoises - all representing spirits that come from the forest, out of the earth and from trees. The sculptures were designed to be used as seats and resting places.
In the words of Susanne Wenger: ‘Ọjà Oǹtótóo is a market for gods, subterranean and supernatural beings, angels and clairvoyant humans. It is an amphitheatre where earthly and heavenly beings are actors and audience combined’. (The Sacred Groves of Oshogbo, Susanne Wenger, 1990, page 18)