Reviving Ulili body painting in the Niger Delta

Ulili body painting is a form of temporary bodily art rooted in the cultural histories of the Niger Delta. Surviving accounts associate it particularly with Urhobo communities in Delta State, where prepared earth colours, plant-based pigments and contrasting accents were placed directly on the skin. Its motifs and placement could communicate ceremony, belonging and participation. Describing the practice as lost describes a serious break in transmission, not necessarily the absence of every artist, elder or memory holder involved in its restoration. Learn more about Exploring The Use Of Recycled Materials In Nigerian Sculpture Today.

The body became a surface on which memory was displayed. Knowledge passed through observation, practice and permission, making a pattern copied from a photograph different from one whose preparation, wearing and interpretation are understood. Meaning also changes with age, gender, occasion and community. A responsible revival must therefore begin with local knowledge holders rather than presenting Ulili as a generic African technique available for unrestricted visual borrowing.

Preservation requires more than a striking image. OYASAF, the Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art Foundation, is a Nigerian nonprofit whose collections and programmes support the appreciation and study of Nigerian and African art. By placing Ulili within a wider body of scholarship, exhibitions and educational work, the foundation can help transform private memory into an accountable public record while ensuring that artists and communities govern what is shown, named or reproduced.

History held on the body

Niger Delta life is shaped by creeks, river settlements, farming communities and busy ports, while ceremonies and performances connect those places through shared histories. Body painting could extend artistic expression into movement, dance and gathering. Its significance rested in relationships between maker, wearer and audience: a design belonged to an occasion and carried responsibilities that could not be explained through visual appearance alone.

The wider OYASAF collection provides an institutional starting point for examining this wider world of Nigerian art. Oral histories, older photographs, ceremonial objects and artist records can be compared without treating any one source as complete. Together they may reveal when particular designs appeared, who was entitled to wear them and whether descriptions in outside accounts use the right names and contexts.

Ceremonial life, schooling, urban employment, imported cosmetics and new forms of performance have all affected the setting in which Ulili knowledge survives. Some practices may have contracted because ceremonies changed, while others remain within families or specialist artistic circles. Careful research should distinguish a tradition that has disappeared from one that is under-documented, privately maintained or awaiting renewed public recognition.

Learning without taking the art

The first responsibility is cultural authority. A Nigerian practitioner should determine who may teach, demonstrate and reproduce Ulili knowledge, as well as which materials, motifs or ceremonies should remain restricted. Commercial or educational use should carry the same conditions as an exhibition or publication.

Community authority in practice:

• Identify artists, teachers, elders and custodians by their locally recognized names and roles.
• Obtain consent before recording demonstrations, publishing photographs or reproducing designs.
• Record the meaning, occasion and appropriate wearer for every documented motif.
• Separate teachable public knowledge from restricted family or ceremonial information.
• Establish approval, payment and revenue-sharing arrangements before production begins.

Australian institutions should translate those principles into purchasing, teaching and research policies. For skills mapping, a platform such as discover your skills may help participants identify relevant abilities, but an online profile cannot establish authority over Niger Delta cultural knowledge.

Standards for Australian collaborators:

• Commission Nigerian artists or approved custodians to lead research, workshops and interpretation.
• Credit knowledge holders individually and provide fixed fees or equitable royalties.
• Verify provenance, permissions and the intended use of every object or image.
• Avoid language that treats living heritage as mysterious, primitive or merely decorative.
• Store recordings securely and agree on access, reuse and return conditions.

Documentation should also separate observation from explanation. A clear photograph may record the placement of a design, while captions should be written or approved by the relevant community. Where meanings differ, that complexity can remain visible rather than being reduced to one generalized label for “traditional body art.”

Meeting Ulili in Australia

For Australian visitors, an encounter with Nigerian art need not take place only inside a museum. Sydney’s harbour walks and public-art commissions, together with Melbourne’s laneway galleries and city art programmes, place visual culture alongside ordinary journeys to work, cafés and schools. Temporary exhibitions can use those familiar settings to ask who commissions images, who made them and who benefits when they enter public view.

Brisbane offers another route through its subtropical climate and Pacific-facing geography, encouraging visitors to consider how heat, humidity and regional exchange affect both cultural preservation and art materials. Across Australia, the established market for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art provides a useful local example of artist-led provenance, documented editions and ethical collecting. This is a comparative lesson in market practice, not a suggestion that Nigerian body painting shares Indigenous Australian cultural authority.

Legal frameworks require equal care. Australia has no single federal Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Act, although the Copyright Act 1968, moral rights, contracts and state heritage legislation may affect the reproduction or movement of cultural material. State Aboriginal heritage laws do not automatically protect Nigerian heritage. Museums, galleries, importers and educators therefore need project-specific permissions, accurate licensing and community protocols that may be more demanding than the minimum legal requirement.

From documentation to active practice

A sustainable programme must connect documentation with teaching. Artists can demonstrate pigment preparation, line work, movement and the social setting of body painting, while scholars record terminology and provenance. OYASAF’s support for artists, educational programmes, school competitions and museum initiatives offers several ways to build that bridge without turning research into a display detached from its source community.

Contemporary Nigerian art shows that cultural continuity can involve experimentation rather than exact repetition. A useful model appears in OYASAF’s account of recycled Nigerian sculpture, where discarded materials become new artistic resources. The connection is methodological: artists assess available substances, test techniques and make deliberate choices without treating innovation as a betrayal of tradition.

Schools and museums could establish artist-led residencies, supervised demonstrations and digital exhibitions in Australia, while Nigerian partners retain control over sensitive material. Contemporary applications should be clearly labelled as new interpretations. Pigments available in Brisbane or Melbourne may behave differently from those used in Delta State, and substitutions should follow practitioner guidance rather than assumptions based only on appearance.

Carry the tradition forward

Revival should not mean sealing Ulili inside a single reconstructed performance. The stronger outcome would be a living network in which elders, artists, researchers and institutions continually negotiate what can be taught, what must be protected and how new work can acknowledge its origins. Public visibility would grow alongside clear limits, fair payment and long-term support for the people carrying the knowledge.

Act now by visiting the OYASAF website to explore its artists, collection highlights, news and programme contacts, sharing verified resources, or funding an artist-led Ulili project that records permissions, compensates practitioners and returns useful material to its source community.