By Sainabou Sambou
Aji Ndumbeh I.G. Jobe, a female poet, painter, photographer and teacher, is preparing to host her first ever Starving Dreamers Exhibition on the 11th November 2023, at the Bakadajie Hotel in Kololi, where she will display her artwork individually as a solo exhibition. She exhibited the Black Portrait Exhibition last year and this year will be her second time of doing a solo exhibition.
I.G. Jobe, as fondly referred, is a talented young creative artist who is passionate about arts and working towards portraying or telling stories through her photography and painting skills. Ms. Jobe graduated from high school in 2017 and proceeded to The Gambia College where she studied history and Arts. She has won a lot of awards both nationally and internationally. She won Oscar Creativity Award in Egypt 2019, and was winner of Young African Women Congress YAWC in Ghana as well as the Africa Led Storyline Award in Ethiopia.
In this exclusive interview IG explained that the purpose of the maiden Starving Dreamers Exhibition is to feature young people who are eager to make a difference either in the education sector, health sector or arts industry.
For an upcoming creative, Aji said she is thinking a little bit outside the box by also featuring kids in the streets, in the ‘Daras’, in the farms and vendors in the streets and the markets. She stated that the stories of these brilliant young people need to be told.
‘‘I will tell these stories through my painting and photography, some of which will be emotional and sad,’’ she said.
Ms. Jobe said people easily associate the theme with hunger, but it is in two folds and has lot of collections. The first fold, she explained, is the young people that are hungry to make a difference either in the education sector, health sector and in the arts industry (acting or modeling); while the second fold is kids in the streets, kids in the ‘Daras’, kids in the farm, who are not lucky enough to be in school.
She continued that she wants to portray stories of Gambians and focus on storyline photography to tell stories about The Gambian culture, adding that her other collection will be the black excellence collection which will portray a display of people in African dresses.
Ms. Jobe lamented that Africans; especially Gambians are slowly losing their culture; that most of the time when people wear African dresses they feel they look odd.
‘‘I want to bring that excellent culture that we have or that excellent outfit that we have. When you look at those portrays, no one should tell you this is from Africa - from their beats, ear rings, their eyes and some of the materials,’’ she said.
Young artist further lamented that being an artist in The Gambia is discouraging as funding is a challenge. She called on the Ministry of Tourism and Culture and the National Centre for Arts and Culture to make a yearly budget for young people in the arts industry.
