About Olubode
Artist | Author
Olubode Shawn Brown is a Jamaican-born multimodal artist, author, lawyer, advisor and founder of the BLOOM Community and Institute. For more than three decades, his work has explored creativity, identity, transformation and community—through law, art, teaching, collaboration and community building.
He wrote this book during a yearlong journey through West Africa—Senegal, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire—reflecting on the state of Black African artists in Africa and its Diaspora.
The book draws on the indigenous African elemental cosmology of the Dagara of Burkina Faso, as taught to him by Malidoma Patrice Somé. Through this lens, Olubode imagines life as the progression of art through a channel of five elemental gates, each opening an existential inquiry into who we are, why we exist, what we value, what we offer and where we belong.
He posits that Black African artists are remembering—and finding new language for what is being remembered—and that their current state reflects something of a collective consciousness of Black African identity on the continent and across the Diaspora.
Accompanied by photographs by Ivorian artist Nuits Balnéaires, BAAM is offered as a personal reflection, a manifesto, a teaching and an inquiry—giving voice to the journey of Black African artists now.
Other books by Olubode include BLOOM: The Essential Journey—A New Guide to Balance, Growth & Well-Being and Finding Your B.I.G.—Finding New Purpose in Changing Times.