An Artist's Point of View
In/hospit/able is a poem exploring the question of sanitization. Often within medical environments, the act of sanitization is for the benefit of the patient, and it is done in order to protect their health. Unfortunately though, in some places such as Riverview, the efforts to create an “unblemished” environment or a “cured” individual are performed through forced normality and torturous means. The extreme methods used to compel someone who was simply struggling with the tribulations of life (as seen in the debunking of the female condition of “hysteria”) towards “regular” behaviour are unnerving, violent and downright abominable, as were the objects used in such procedures. These items often become stained by the bodies of their subjects. That is what is being juxtaposed in this poem, the idea of a clean, sanitized medical environment, with the realities of the tools and methods used to create such a thing, as well as the often complex and blemished humans who were at the mercy of both of these things.
Artist Biography
Babaloluwa (Lolu) Oyedele is a Nigeria-born, South-African raised interdisciplinary artist, performer and writer. He has a BFA in Interdisciplinary Performance from UBC Okanagan and most recently had the pleasure of being Coquitlam Heritage’s Artist in Residency, culminating in the creation of The Porter’s Revival, a storytelling piece about the serendipitous meeting between the ghost of a Sleeping Car Porter and a young artist. Babaloluwa has also collaborated with various theatre companies in the Okanagan, including acting for Little Mountain Lion Productions on 27 Stories Written by Kids as well as having been a member of Pacific Theatre’s Working With writing cohort. He is currently working and living in the unceded territory of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, otherwise known as Vancouver, B.C.
Instagram: @loluoyedele
Website: loluoyedele.squarespace.com