Friday 11 July - Saturday 23 August 2025
The Project Space @ Ffotogallery - FREE, All welcome
Wednesday - Saturday, 12pm - 5pm
“How You Dey” : A Conversation Starter on Identity, Home, and Wellbeing
How You Dey :
Derived from the Nigerian Pidgin greeting meaning "How are you?", this
local slang might be the conversation starter, but here it is the
openness about one's true feelings on issues around mental health and
vulnerability. How You Dey is an immersive exhibition based on a series of creative well-being sessions led by artist Abike Ogunlokun, Nelly Ating, Paskaline Maiyo, and therapist Star Moyo for SSAP.
Supported by Arts Council Wales’s
‘Arts and Health Programme’, this exhibition is a collection of
week-long workshops in 2024 where participants engaged in photography,
zine-making, and body painting as tools for self-expression and communal
dialogue. Each activity aimed at strengthening a sense of community,
vulnerabilities, and representation through stillness and connection
with self. The photography session focuses on self-identity, place, and
gaze, as evidenced by the familiarity of the images produced. Questions
such as How do we see things? and Where might our vision come from?
stayed at the centre but also extended to severing self-awareness and
artistic expression. The zine workshop explored themes of identity,
living in Wales and our connection to the country, as well as mental and
physical well-being and community. The face and body painting session
demonstrated that the body serves not only as a canvas, but also as a
medium for storing memories, transforming them into expressions of
beauty, resilience, inspiration, and healing.
This is the third iteration of the wellbeing program under the JAMII project, after two years of testing how art can be used to tackle mental health issues in the community. We observed that How You Dey was not only a conversation starter but also a bridge, offering a space for "coming together."