Art supplies don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. For those willing to look, they abound in our trash cans, recycling bins, and in the flora and fauna of our natural environment. This lesson—that students must simply open their eyes to secure materials—is central to much of the art made in Cameroon and other African countries, where money for supplies runs scant, and where artists turn to found objects  to create something unique. This lesson is also one that Duke School artist-in-residence Issa Nyaphaga hopes to teach seventh graders. “I want to show students that everything around them in nature can be used to create art,” Nyaphaga says. “They don’t have to go out and buy things.”

This week, Nyaphaga is helping seventh graders recreate an African village out of recycled wares. Boxes of paper towel tubes, Quaker Oats containers, and plastic water bottles line the art room shelves, while mounds of local dirt soak in buckets of water, waiting for Friday morning, when students will hand-paint the village fence and cabin with mud. A number of individual projects take place simultaneously, including a sand painting and mural made with human hair. The hair murals, which Nyaphaga calls capillarism, stem from the artist’s nine-year practice of using human hair to paint. He explains: “In my home country, people are superstitious of human hair, and they view it as a living entity with a magical spirit. In my art, I use different kinds of human hair because I believe that diversity makes life interesting. When arranged on a canvas or piece of paper, hair allows the viewer to see many different things, depending on the position of the light and the personal perspective.”

An internationally-acclaimed artist and art educator born in the central African country of Cameroon, Nyaphaga grew up in a small village of the Tikar tribe. Painting with natural resources is common practice in this rainforest setting, and Nyaphaga started early. Later, he became a political cartoonist for a satirical newspaper and, in 1995, was imprisoned and exiled for this work. He has since lived in France and the United States, though he travels worldwide teaching and working as a performing and visual artist. His international experience, coupled with his broad religious background in Animism, Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism, make him a citizen of a global society more than of one particular place. 

The creation of the African village at Duke School coincides with a three-month-long study of Africa in seventh grade, during which students will investigate such topics as genocide in Darfur, boy soldiers in Sudan, and political exile. Seventh-grade teacher Jonathan Woody says this about the visiting artist: “Issa’s residency is an excellent addition to our study of Africa. We’ve had meaningful discussions about political exile—what it meant for him to be kicked out of his home country and what it meant for another country, France, to offer him asylum. His presence brings to life everything students are learning.” He adds: “African culture stresses community over the individual. Issa works on that with students by helping them understand that it’s not what they can do individually but what they can do collectively.”   

Duke School invites all members of the press to its middle school campus this Friday to witness the final stages of the project. From 11:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., students will decorate the African village with their homespun sand paintings, hair murals, a totem pole, and more. The middle school is located at 3716 Old Erwin Road, Durham, NC 27705.