Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Kirsty Young
Artist whose work explores cultural identity, post-colonialism and globalisation, often with a vivid, subversive, tragicomic presence.
Eight records
I must have been, you know, possibly about ten or eleven and I heard this for the first time on Soul Train and I just could not stop dancing. Her tracks are just so funky.
Well, I chose this because this very much reminds me of my childhood in Nigeria and I'm bilingual, so he sings in Yoruba, and I just like the mixture of a traditional African drums with the guitar and also the Yoruba language, and this just pure nostalgia for me.
This is my boy Lollipop. And this reminds me of my mother, because this is from my mother's record collection. And my mother had this, you know, singer sewing machine. And she used to make her her own clothes and cut her own patterns. And she also had a lot of fashion magazines. And I also l used to look at all the fashions in the magazine. And I just remember the song being in the background.
This is somebody that my parents did not approve of at all. I mean, this is Felakuti. And Felakuti had 27 wives. He challenged the establishment and he challenged authority. He also encouraged the smoking of marijuana and there was no way my parents would have approved of anything like that. But because my parents didn't approve of him, I really loved him.
Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud
This uh is the godfather of Seoul, James Brown, and um James Brown is just too funky.
Oh, this is Compared to What by Les McCann and Eddie Harris, and I just find it absolutely compelling.
Addio del passato (from La Traviata)
This is um the first time I actually listened to opera attentively because I always felt the melancholy of opera, which I was later to find cathartic as an older person. As a younger person, I just wanted to dance and I didn't want anything sad in my life. But then actually as I matured and a girlfriend actually introduced me to opera for the first time. Of course I always had it in the background, but I just thought it was old people's music. But when I saw Trivieta and particularly this area, I just couldn't get it off my head. And there's something very uplifting in the kind of pathos of the opera.
What's Going OnFavourite
This is uh Marvin Gaye, What's Going On and at the moment there are a number of conflicts around the world and this song continues to be relevant. It's political, it's about conflict, but it's also about trying to resolve conflict.
The keepsakes
The book
Jonathan Swift
I would have Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. And this is a book that deals with all of human nature, it also deals with the way we treat strangers, and particularly in the context of the migrant crisis. It also looks at the futile nature of war. And this is a book that every time I read it, I discover new things.
The luxury
Well, I would actually have a pen to take with me, and I have the the pen here. ... Yes, but the ink flows quite easily. And the reason I would want to have this pen is that because of my hands, I find it easy to draw with it. But I also know that I can make a whole new world. I can draw my fantasies. And in my drawings, everyone would be holding hands and everyone would love each other. And there wouldn't be any wars and there wouldn't be anything. I'm an artist after all, so I would draw my utopian world and ...
In conversation
Presenter asks
What do you mean by beautiful and dark art?
The world is so complex and of course it's easy to be angry and it's easy to you know wear that anger on the outside, but I think it's best to produce work that will make people think, that will make people engage with what you're trying to do. I believe in the idea of the Trojan horse. So I like being uh subversive, but I like doing it in a subtle way and I like being in places where I'm not meant to be and then I can kind of challenge people, but I don't want the art to appear aggressive or confrontational.
Presenter asks
How much do you want people when they are looking at your art? How much do you want them to feel and how much do you want them to think? Would you rather have one above the other?
I mean, I think I want both. In my own life, I would actually go as far as to say that the art itself saved me because when I was ill and I was in hospital, it was a form of therapy when I was coming into recovery. It was also a way in which I could transform the world in my own way. I could also create impossible realms, you know, things I might not be able to do, I could sort of travel through the art.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.
Presenter
For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
Presenter
My castaway this week is the artist Yinka Shunibari. His work has populated museums worldwide with a vivid subversity and often tragicomic presence, exploring themes of cultural identity, post-colonialism, and the impact of globalization. He is something of a citizen of the world himself. Born in London, his parents moved the family to Nigeria when he was three. Later, he came back to Britain to finish his education. But
Presenter
His plans to study art were brutally interrupted when he contracted a disease that attacked his central nervous system. As a result, he had three years of intensive rehab. He now uses a wheelchair and works with assistants to create his art. He says, All the things that are supposed to be wrong with me have actually become a huge asset. I'm talking about race and disability. They're meant to be negatives within our society, but they're precisely the things that have liberated me. So, welcome. It is a tricky thing to try and describe.
Presenter
the art that you do precisely because you work across so many forms. You do filmed works, you do paintings, you do installations, you do sculpture. You once said that you want the work you do to be beautiful and dark art. Well, what a phrase that is. What do you mean by beautiful and dark art?
Yinka Shonibare
The world is so complex and of course it's easy to be angry and it's easy to you know wear that anger on the outside, but I think it's best to produce work that will make people think, that will make people engage with what you're trying to do. I believe in the idea of the Trojan horse. So I like being uh subversive, but I like doing it in a subtle way and I like being in places where I'm not meant to be and then I can kind of challenge people, but I don't want the art to appear aggressive or confrontational.
Presenter
Do you ever just go into a gallery and watch people as they come and see your art and absorb it and watch their reactions to it?
Yinka Shonibare
I'm often kind of intrigued by, you know, what people say or what they think. I mean, for example, the ship in a bottle I made in Trafalgar Square.
Presenter
which was famously on the four splints.
Yinka Shonibare
Absolutely. And the response to that was actually overwhelming. I mean, it was the first time I could have conversations with cab drivers about the work.
Presenter
And give us a taster of some of the opinions you heard, then, from the Cabbeys and whomsoever else. What did they tell you about your art?
Yinka Shonibare
Most often, you know, how did you get the ship into the bottle? And then I'd say things like, oh, well, I'd have to kill you if I told you that, you know.
Presenter
Yes.
Presenter
When you're creating, are you listening to music?
Yinka Shonibare
Yes, I mean I often paint and I draw and I always have music in the background.
Presenter
Tell me about this first one. What are we going to hear?
Yinka Shonibare
Well, this is um Aretha Franklin and I must have been, you know, possibly about ten or eleven and I heard this for the first time on Soul Train and I just could not stop dancing. Her tracks are just so funky.
Speaker 4
Say it, baby.
Speaker 4
That's what I feel now.
Speaker 4
That's all the sound exactly what it is.
Speaker 4
Got to move your hips when I'm feeling from side to side
Speaker 4
Put yourself down in your car and take a ride.
Speaker 4
Why you move in last night?
Speaker 4
Right, Steady baby.
Speaker 4
Let's call this song exactly what it is. What it is, what it is, what it is. It's a funk and done, I feel it. What it is in the heat.
Presenter
That was Aretha Franklin and Rocksteady. So, Yinka Shonibari, art it's really about transformation, isn't it? It's the transformation of materials, it's the transformation of maybe people's view of the world, it's it's a transformation of thought. How much do you want people when they are looking at your art? How much do you want them to feel and how much do you want them to think? Would you rather have one above the other?
Yinka Shonibare
I mean, I think I want both. In my own life, I would actually go as far as to say that the art itself saved me because when I was ill and I was in hospital, it was a form of therapy when I was coming into recovery. It was also a way in which I could transform the world in my own way. I could also create
Yinka Shonibare
Impossible realms, you know, things I might not be able to do, I could sort of travel through the art.
Presenter
It struck me in in looking at so much of your work that a lot of it has movement in it, sometimes magical movement. There may be actual figures soaring in the air, or more recently I think of those sort of handkerchief sculptures that were exhibited in the middle of the sculpture park in Yorkshire. Do you think that has very much mirrored your own personal lack of movement? You can go into those realms in other ways.
Yinka Shonibare
Well, art is incredibly liberating, and you're able to do things you can't do, and you can imagine worlds that you can't actually occupy yourself. So perhaps that has something to do with it, but it's the art of making the impossible possible. And I think that's that's essentially what art is for me. I mean, it's a form of alchemy after all. You know, you're turning the ordinary into the extraordinary when you're an artist.
Presenter
And when you use the word alchemy, I mean that does bestow upon it a sort of magical quality, is it you imbuing it with that?
Yinka Shonibare
Absolutely. I mean, I think art is a form of magic. It's something that you do to get away from the horrible things that happen in the world. And somehow you want to make it better. You can fix the world through your art, or you can somehow make it more bearable.
Presenter
Let's go to your second piece of music, Yinka Shonibari. Tell me about this. What are we going to hear now?
Yinka Shonibare
We're going to hear a synchro system by King Sonia Day
Presenter
And why have you chosen this?
Yinka Shonibare
Well, I chose this because this very much reminds me of my childhood in Nigeria and I'm bilingual, so he sings in Yoruba, and I just like the mixture of a traditional African drums with the guitar and also the Yoruba language, and this just pure nostalgia for me.
Speaker 4
Synchro Synchro system
Speaker 4
Sing for Sister.
Speaker 4
He does take something
Speaker 4
Illo total
Speaker 4
Or in tune, I thought was on his
Presenter
King Sanya Day and Synchro systems. So Yinkoshonobari, you were born in Britain, as we know. You lived here until you were, I think, three, and then your parents decided that they were going to take the family to Nigeria.
Presenter
But why did they decide to do that?
Yinka Shonibare
Well, my parents took me back to Nigeria in the sixties and there was a lot of enthusiasm in the sixties. There was that kind of post independence euphoria. People went back to rebuild. My father had studied law in Europe and he wanted to make a contribution. And it was a very happy time. Nigeria did have a number of military coups at that time. But there was a period there when it was actually very optimistic. And it was about nation building.
Presenter
And can you describe to me family life at that time in Lagos?
Yinka Shonibare
I come from a fairly shall we put it well to do Nigerian middle class background. And we lived in a very nice uh modernist home, you know, with gardens and and we had, you know, chefs and we had the gander. You know, you had a a driver that took you to school. My father was a corporate lawyer and he headed a United Bank for Africa it was called.
Presenter
You wear that very lightly when you say, you know, there were various military coups. I mean, did you feel a degree of instability even as a kid, or was that pretty much kept at arm's length?
Yinka Shonibare
The children were protected. I mean, I vaguely remember the civil war in Nigeria. I was quite young, but I grew up in Lagos, so there would be sirens and then everyone would have to lie down. I remember that as a child.
Yinka Shonibare
But the actual bombing didn't come to Lagos. But we heard about it and we saw images on T V. I'm talking about the Biafran war and it it was very sad.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
I read that your interest in art began or was attributable to the chronically bad afternoon traffic in Lagos.
Yinka Shonibare
the traffic was actually really bad. Right. So the driver used to pick me up quite late from school and I used to stay behind in the art room to do some art while I was waiting for the driver. And my art teacher used to stay there with me. And so I used to do more drawing and look at lots of art books. My interest in art kind of began that way.
Presenter
Right.
Presenter
You were good at art, as a little guy were.
Yinka Shonibare
Were you you well, I loved it and I because of having to wait after school, I had more time to practise my art, you know, so it wasn't entirely bad.
Presenter
Good for something. Uh tell me about your third piece of music then.
Yinka Shonibare
Actually
Yinka Shonibare
This is my boy Lollipop. And this reminds me of my mother, because this is from my mother's record collection. And my mother had this, you know, singer sewing machine. And she used to make her her own clothes and cut her own patterns. And she also had a lot of fashion magazines. And I also l used to look at all the fashions in the magazine. And I just remember the song being in the background.
Speaker 4
Shit, but now
Presenter
That was Millie Small and My Boy Lollipop. And chosen, you say, Yinka Shonobari, because it reminded you of all the times that you would watch your mother making her own uh clothes on her singer sewing machine. W was she terribly fashionable, your mother?
Yinka Shonibare
She looked like one of the Supremes, you know. She had the wig and the sixties dresses, things, yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Fabulous. I was looking at the average winter temperature in Lagos in Nigeria, around about twenty-seven degrees. I was looking at the average winter temperature in Andover, England, around about seven degrees. That's where you were sent back to do your exams to this drafty old Catholic boarding school. I mean, that must have been something of a shock to the system, was it?
Yinka Shonibare
Well, it was really shocking coming back to England and having to play rugby in the cold. And also, oh, I remember the food. I didn't know what toad in the hole was and I was used to eating, you know, spicy food. And in Nigeria, you know, we'd eat jollof rice and plantains and
Presenter
Did you miss home terribly?
Yinka Shonibare
I wanted to live immediately when I arrived, yes. I mean, I enjoyed some of it, but it was just too strict. And then just boys alone, I didn't like that too much either.
Presenter
What about your growing interest then in your mid and late teens in art? When did it become clear to you that actually that was your thing?
Yinka Shonibare
I always knew when I was at school, but of course coming from a Nigerian family, you were expected to be, you know, a lawyer, an accountant, a doctor. I've got a sibling who's a surgeon and one is a banker and one is a dentist. So I'm the only one who's gone kinda slightly the wrong way. Did they say you will study black?
Presenter
And blah blah blah.
Yinka Shonibare
Well, my father, I think he would have liked me to have studied law. And he always wondered what I would do for a living. You know, how would you survive as an artist? It's a good question. And that question came up again and again. In the beginning, after I left Goldsmiths College, I was always broke and I was always calling home for money. And there was always the usual I told you so.
Presenter
And and take me back, if you would, uh Yinka, to your eighteen year old self. What was your in so far as any eighteen year old imagines their future? What did you imagine your future to be?
Yinka Shonibare
I wanted to be an artist, but I also wanted to teach. That was also another thing. I thought I could join a university or an art school and just teach art. I never really thought that art would be what it's become now. Especially my generation of artists. You know, those were in that sensation at the Royal Academy. You know, the so-called young British artists, you know, the YBAs. And, you know, none of us had any money in those days. And none of us actually imagined that the interest in contemporary art in Britain will become as big as it has become. Usually, you know, the theatre was what people were mostly interested in, not the visual arts. The whole art world has been transformed. But at that time, you know, the best you could have hoped for would have been, you know, maybe part-time teaching at an art school, and that would have been your lot, really.
Presenter
Time for some more music, Yinka Shonobari. Tell me about this. This is your fourth disc of the day?
Yinka Shonibare
This is somebody that my parents did not approve of at all. I mean, this is Felakuti. And Felakuti had 27 wives. He.
Presenter
He he really had yes, I'm amazed he had any time to make a record in twenty seven.
Yinka Shonibare
Yeah.
Yinka Shonibare
Belakuti married twenty seven women. He challenged the establishment and he challenged authority. He also encouraged the smoking of marijuana and there was no way my parents would have approved of anything like that. But because my parents didn't approve of him, I really loved him.
Presenter
Right.
Speaker 4
Obviously.
Speaker 4
I like her, I'm so
Speaker 4
I know what to who we are.
Speaker 4
But my friends don't know
Speaker 4
He put in socks, he put in shoe, he put in pants, he put in singlet, he put in trousers, he put in shirt, he put in tie, he put in coat, he come cover all within parts, he be gentleman, he goes sweat, oh look.
Presenter
Fella Kusi and gentlemen, so Inka Shonibari, it was 1981 and you were starting your foundation year at Wimbledon School of Art.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Presenter
You tripped on the stairs and you fell. Tell me what happened next.
Yinka Shonibare
I was just going down the stairs and I felt faint and I could feel myself falling and then I just remember I woke up in hospital two weeks later. You know, and then I was told I'd been there for two weeks. I was in a coma. And I wanted to get up and I was told, well, we're sorry, you can't get up. And I said, oh, just give me a stick. I would just get up and walk. And it was explained to me that it was transverse myelitis. It was a virus in my spine, which left me completely paralyzed from my neck downwards. And for a 19-year-old, that was shocking. I didn't know what would happen next.
Presenter
Mm.
Presenter
You were given three years of intensive physiotherapy, which must in itself have been astonishingly hard physical work. What sort of mental support were you given? In terms of a you know, you were a young man with your life in front of you, you'd been entirely able bodied, and this came
Presenter
Totally out of the blue.
Yinka Shonibare
I'm a hardest support worker that
Yinka Shonibare
looked after my uh career needs. And also I had to learn everything. I had a lot of occupational therapy. I had to learn how to dress myself, how to feed myself, and then also how to drive a car.
Presenter
So you were able to get back a degree of mobility from having been totally paralyzed by the initial.
Yinka Shonibare
Yes, in fact I was walking around for a number of years with difficulty uh up until about maybe three years ago.
Presenter
When I introduced you today, I used the quote to illustrate your attitude towards what has happened to you and you said, you know, these things are meant to be negatives, but actually they're precisely the things that have liberated me. I'm wondering, between the age of that happening to you and this catastrophe befalling you, and this evolved middle-aged man with all his experiences and thoughts and maturity now, at what point did you begin to think, yes, actually, this is a part of me I will embrace? I'm thinking that must have taken a heck of a time.
Yinka Shonibare
You're not really happy until you've fully accepted it. And then you try to build a life based on your new situation. I have to admit, I was suicidal. I had suicidal thoughts when I hadn't accepted the situation and I wanted it to be exactly as it was. And I was sent for all kinds of therapies, and particularly, you know, my father was very keen to get me back to how I was. So, therefore, I had to.
Yinka Shonibare
Go through all kinds of therapies.
Presenter
You mean physical therapies?
Yinka Shonibare
And also alternative medicine and so on. I just wanted to get back to my passion, which is art. And I think when I stopped all the other types of alternative medicine, I felt better because I realized, you know, I was starting to come to terms with myself and learning to live with my new body and evolve in a new life through that. And consequently, in fact, I also chose to have completely new friends, nobody from the past. I wanted people who would take me as I am now. And that's what I did. I basically cut off a lot of people in my past.
Presenter
There must have been people from, as you describe it, your past, who still very much wanted to be part of your life, who felt that they were your friends and that they had a place in your present, in your future. How did you deal with that?
Yinka Shonibare
I just didn't contact people from my past.
Presenter
Can you remember a time in your mid twenties?
Presenter
when I don't know if it would be when you woke up in the morning or when you were among your new friends when you thought, This is a good life, I want to be in this life.
Yinka Shonibare
Going back into art school was that time when I felt this is really good.
Presenter
So much more to come, Inkoshonebari, for now let's have some music.
Yinka Shonibare
This uh is the godfather of Seoul, James Brown, and um James Brown is just too funky.
Speaker 4
Ew.
Speaker 4
And we've been scarred.
Speaker 4
Women being mad talked about, as sure as you bones.
Speaker 4
Doesn't shoot as it take two eyes to make a pair. Brother, we can't quit until we get our share.
Speaker 4
Say it loud.
Speaker 4
Uh
Presenter
Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud that was James Brown. So, Yinka Shawnee Barry, you were talking there a moment ago about uh the Byam Shaw School of Art in Kensington in London. You were there in your early and mid twenties. What were you interested in as a young student? Were you a radical type?
Yinka Shonibare
Not initially.
Yinka Shonibare
Because I'd come from a you know a fairly privileged background. Because I was just happily drawing and painting news. That's all I was doing. And I was quite happy with that. And then I realized, no, actually, I had to do something more. And then I discovered about the black art movement and, of course, you know, the whole history of empire and colonialism and also identity politics. And then I realized that actually there is a lot going on in the world that you know I had to be conscious of all of this.
Presenter
And you said you were doing your live classes and painting your nudes and you were very happy with that. I read though that you did a project entitled Perestroika at one point.
Yinka Shonibare
After my period of happily painting the newts, I saw what was going on in the then Soviet Union, and Perestroika was starting to happen. So I then made work about Perestroika. And then one of my teachers said to me, But you're of African origin, aren't you? Why aren't you making authentic African art? And you know, somebody who grew up in a city in Lagos, and I, you know, I was watching Sesame Street and watching Skippy, and I didn't quite understand what this meant about producing authentic African art. You know, that's when I thought, okay, so
Yinka Shonibare
Regardless of what I did, I would be considered one thing. I'm of African origin, but I I'm also open to the modern world. I'm not stuck. But I felt very much that I wasn't expected somehow to participate in a global conversation. And I felt that the issue of the Cold War and peristroika was a conversation as an African I could participate in.
Presenter
And also, as you say, that phrase authentic African art, this idea that you constantly play with is the appropriation of culture, of you assume it to be yours, but actually let's just look at the idea of authentic and and what sort of culture, which colours, which prints, which paints belong to whom.
Yinka Shonibare
I mean the so-called African textiles are Indonesian influenced fabrics produced by the Dutch.
Presenter
Now these are the fabrics, for people who might not be aware, that recur constantly in your art, and they would be, I think, to the unknowing eye, certainly to my eye, you would immediately associate them with African fashion. They are sort of batik, they are highly coloured, but in fact their origins are what?
Yinka Shonibare
Well, they're Indonesian influenced fabrics produced by the Dutch and also the British also. They were at one time they were produced in Hyde in Manchester and also in Holland and then for sales to the African market.
Presenter
Let's have some more music. Uh Yinka Shonibari, tell me about our next track.
Yinka Shonibare
Oh, this is Compared to What by Les McCann and Eddie Harris, and I just find it absolutely compelling.
Speaker 3
Everybody now trying to make it real compared to what
Speaker 3
Come on.
Presenter
That was Les McHenn and Eddie Harris and compared to what?
Presenter
What have um your family over the years made of your art?
Yinka Shonibare
It's kind of funny because uh in Nigeria, you know, i if it translates into dollars, then obviously there's something good about it, you know, particularly as I've been awarded a a number of awards and honours and so on. So my parents very much recognized that, particularly when I received the um MBE. I mean, my family are very approving of the royal family, so that was something that was liked very much.
Presenter
You didn't just embrace the MBE by accepting it, you also incorporated it into your name and the names of your exhibitions that you know, they became Yinka Shonibari MBE. Was your tongue in your cheek?
Yinka Shonibare
When I was first awarded the MBE, a number of artists and others said, Oh, you know, you have to turn it down, you know, because of the history of empire and so on.
Presenter
And so on.
Yinka Shonibare
and I felt that the British Empire
Yinka Shonibare
is no longer threatening. I mean, I'm not naive enough to think that the legacy of empire is gone away. Uh the legacy of empire is very much here, but empire is not as threatening as it was and to create some kind of opposition or some kind of dichotomy I just felt was wrong. I felt that if you were um honored you should not turn it down in that way. And I felt very much that it's important to actually make the point. So really accepting it is almost a way of asserting my own independence.
Presenter
Yes, uh so to reject it would have given it power.
Yinka Shonibare
Absolutely. And also would have diminished me because it would have positioned me in opposition to something. And I'm not in opposition to anything. So I'm not on the opposite side of any argument. I'm always both. And actually after all, you know, I did enjoy being at the palace and I I guess I would describe myself as a rebel within.
Presenter
Let's have some more music, Yinkoshonobare.
Yinka Shonibare
This is um the first time I actually listened to opera attentively because I always felt the melancholy of opera, which I was later to find cathartic as an older person. As a younger person, I just wanted to dance and I didn't want anything sad in my life. But then actually as I matured and a girlfriend actually introduced me to opera for the first time. Of course I always had it in the background, but I just thought it was old people's music. But when I saw Trivieta and particularly this area, I just couldn't get it off my head. And there's something very uplifting in the kind of pathos of the opera.
Speaker 4
And you're so born.
Speaker 4
Oh, that's hard.
Speaker 4
Uh
Presenter
That was the Adio del Pasato from Verdi's La Traviata, sung there by Anana Trebko with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Carlo Rizzi. You've said, Yinko Shionibari, that art saved you really. It it showed you a way to live and that it's given you the ability to to explore and to expand in ways that
Presenter
You know, you now physically can't. You've done it with your imagination, you've done it with your artistic ability. What impact, I wonder, do you hope your art has on the people who see it?
Yinka Shonibare
I hope that people come away feeling
Yinka Shonibare
Uplifted. I hope that they enjoy the work, but they also ask questions about a number of you know difficult issues. But as an artist, you know, I'm not a politician. But I want also to engage all of their senses. You will find that actually in my work there is also a lot of darkness too. And life is like that. You know, you're not sad every day and you're not happy every day.
Presenter
Let me just ask you before we hear your final piece of music about how you would.
Presenter
Survive alone on a desert island? I mean, you work collaboratively. Are you somebody who is easy with their own company? I suppose as an artist you must actually spend quite long stretches alone at times.
Yinka Shonibare
Well, I like people's company. I mean, even in my own studio, you know, in London, I have a project space for younger artists where I show other people's work. I'm not one of those artists who would like to hide away and never see anybody. I mean, I don't like loneliness, but I enjoy solitude. And there's a huge difference between both. But I know that I will cope on my own, you know, on an island. Uh, but it'll be good to um, you know, see people every now and then.
Presenter
Tell me about your final piece. What are we gonna hear?
Yinka Shonibare
This is uh Marvin Gaye, What's Going On and at the moment there are a number of conflicts around the world and this song continues to be relevant. It's political, it's about conflict, but it's also about trying to resolve conflict.
Speaker 4
Mother, mother
Speaker 4
There's too many of you cry
Speaker 4
Brother, brother, brother
Speaker 4
There's far too many of you that
Speaker 4
You know we
Speaker 4
Uh
Speaker 4
To bring some love in here today
Speaker 4
Bob the fire
Presenter
That was Marvin Gay and What's Going On. It's time now, uh Yinka, for me to give you the books. Everybody gets uh the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible to take to their island. And of course you get to take another book along with those. Uh what's
Yinka Shonibare
What's
Presenter
Go put going to be
Yinka Shonibare
I would have Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. And this is a book that deals with all of human nature. It also deals with the way we treat strangers, and particularly in the context of the migrant crisis. It also looks at the futile nature of war. And this is a book that every time I read it, I discover new things.
Presenter
Okay, we shall give you that book then. And a luxury. What will yours be?
Yinka Shonibare
Well, I would actually have a pen to take with me, and I have the the pen here.
Presenter
Ah yes.
Yinka Shonibare
And the pen.
Presenter
It's a kind of every D-looking pen that, I have to say.
Yinka Shonibare
Yes, but the ink flows quite easily. And the reason I would want to have this pen is that because of my hands, I find it easy to draw with it. But I also know that I can make a whole new world. I can draw my fantasies. And in my drawings, everyone would be holding hands and everyone would love each other. And there wouldn't be any wars and there wouldn't be anything. I'm an artist after all, so I would draw my utopian world and
Presenter
Right.
Yinka Shonibare
Can I have some uh paper with that?
Presenter
It would be a horrific cruelty if it weren't to allow you to have paper. Of course, you can, yes, you can have a paper and pen, your special pen, to take with you.
Yinka Shonibare
Oh great.
Presenter
If you could only have one of the eight disks, which one would you like to save?
Yinka Shonibare
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Yinka Shonibare
I have
Presenter
Yeah.
Yinka Shonibare
See I'd like to save Marvin Gaye uh what's going on.
Presenter
It's yours. Yinka Shonabari, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.
Yinka Shonibare
Thank you.
Presenter
You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website, bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.
Presenter asks
But why did they decide to do that [move the family to Nigeria]?
Well, my parents took me back to Nigeria in the sixties and there was a lot of enthusiasm in the sixties. There was that kind of post independence euphoria. People went back to rebuild. My father had studied law in Europe and he wanted to make a contribution. And it was a very happy time. Nigeria did have a number of military coups at that time. But there was a period there when it was actually very optimistic. And it was about nation building.
Presenter asks
You tripped on the stairs and you fell. Tell me what happened next.
I was just going down the stairs and I felt faint and I could feel myself falling and then I just remember I woke up in hospital two weeks later. You know, and then I was told I'd been there for two weeks. I was in a coma. And I wanted to get up and I was told, well, we're sorry, you can't get up. And I said, oh, just give me a stick. I would just get up and walk. And it was explained to me that it was transverse myelitis. It was a virus in my spine, which left me completely paralyzed from my neck downwards. And for a 19-year-old, that was shocking. I didn't know what would happen next.
Presenter asks
At what point did you begin to think, yes, actually, this [disability] is a part of me I will embrace?
You're not really happy until you've fully accepted it. And then you try to build a life based on your new situation. I have to admit, I was suicidal. I had suicidal thoughts when I hadn't accepted the situation and I wanted it to be exactly as it was. And I was sent for all kinds of therapies, and particularly, you know, my father was very keen to get me back to how I was. So, therefore, I had to go through all kinds of therapies.
Presenter asks
What have your family over the years made of your art?
It's kind of funny because uh in Nigeria, you know, i if it translates into dollars, then obviously there's something good about it, you know, particularly as I've been awarded a a number of awards and honours and so on. So my parents very much recognized that, particularly when I received the um MBE. I mean, my family are very approving of the royal family, so that was something that was liked very much.
“I believe in the idea of the Trojan horse. So I like being uh subversive, but I like doing it in a subtle way and I like being in places where I'm not meant to be and then I can kind of challenge people, but I don't want the art to appear aggressive or confrontational.”
“Art is incredibly liberating, and you're able to do things you can't do, and you can imagine worlds that you can't actually occupy yourself. So perhaps that has something to do with it, but it's the art of making the impossible possible. And I think that's that's essentially what art is for me. I mean, it's a form of alchemy after all.”
“I was suicidal. I had suicidal thoughts when I hadn't accepted the situation and I wanted it to be exactly as it was.”
“I would describe myself as a rebel within.”