Art as a Portal: Navigating Self-Discovery, Collage, and the Transformative Power of Creativity with Bosede Ajibola Opetubo

A new anthology series published by Fortuna Major Press, entitled Queer/Trans Magic, seeks to cultivate a space for LGBTQ2S+ people to share creative works that explore, honor, and transform lineages of queer magic & resilience.

The premise of the series is simple: creativity is a powerful, alchemical form of resistance to cultures of domination. Through our creativity, we forge space for our voices and our bodies—past, present, and future—to thrive in the process of becoming. Who we are, where we come from, how we belong, and the stories we share exist in an infinite web of connection that needs tending; and artists are uniquely poised to tend to and illuminate those connections.

But what exactly is the magic in Queer/Trans Magic? From from collages that draw us into the lush forests of queer Alabama, altars that support transdimensional communion with oneself, and poetry that ushers us through the process of reincarnation — the first issue, Shapeshifting, is full to the brim with creative works that illustrate the inseparable bond between our bodies, our communities, and our landscapes.

Meet Bosede Opetubo, one of 11 featured artists within this first issue, Shapeshifting. She sat down with me to talk about how her mixed media collage art serves as portals through time and space while she explores motherhood and the power of coming home to herself.

The cover design of the first issue of Queer/Trans Magic Magazine. Featuring a golden circle, surrounded by an illustrated wreath. Two Brown hands point toward each other, touching in the middle. A sword is centered behind them.

So, just to start off could you share about who you are, where you're creating from?

Great, starting with the hard questions.

You know it.

I'm Bosede Ajibola Opetubo, a Nigerian American artist from the Bronx, now living in Boston. I'm in a phase of self-discovery, having realized at 30 that I hadn't been fully engaged in life. I made a bucket list and started exploring art. Now at 35, I've transitioned from treating art as a hobby to embracing it as my career. Right now I'm in an exploratory phase. My primary mediums are collage, site-specific installation, and I'm experimenting with painting.

You submitted a collage to Queer/Trans Magic, of course, but of all those mediums have any of them really transformed you? What speaks to you and compels you about the mediums that you’re typically working with?

You know, I think that there's something so lost in the way I was living, and working, really. In front of a computer and just typing constantly. It was so confusing because I was working for mission-driven organizations, but on a day-to-day basis, it didn't feel connected to what they were actually trying to accomplish.

So collage really has spoken to me most. There's just something about being able to use my hands; to use my physical body. Picking things up and dumping things out on the floor, folding things and rearranging them, tearing them up, reconstructing and deconstructing them. It engages so many different parts of my brain and enlivens me. Collage is where I feel like my work is the most “successful”, and where I have the deepest connection.

I know that you're just emerging in this pivot to art as a career. Have you already gone on a journey of finding your artistic voice before this? Do you feel like you're still in that process?

I am connected to all of my artistic voices. There is so much that I want to say, my process is about honing in to the different channels running in my brain and picking one or two to explore in a new project.

I was lucky in that the first big, successful piece of work that I made, “Wallpaper,” was driven by such a loud and present event in my life, my pregnancy, that I had no choice but to be really attuned to what I was feeling, how I was creating, and what I wanted my work to say.  Through the creation of that piece, which started as a sculpture, became an installation, and inspired dozen of drawings, essays and digital collages, I was able to practice getting really specific and using that to stay grounded and fuel my creative process.

In terms of output, there’s a whole other layer, which I explore in Origin Story, which is how my artwork exists as a time portal for myself. I tune into this mindframe of, I can't change anything about the past, but if I just make this artwork — and a version of me in an alternate universe sees it — how does that change me now and me there?

Photography from Bosede Opetubo’s installation, Wallpaper, at the Jamaica Plain Branch Library from August 2023 to November 2023. A silhouette of a person stands between two sets of paper wall sculptures. Pink sculptures line the walls on the left and yellow ones on the right.

Let’s get into how that piece, Origin Story, became a transportive object for you. In your submission, you wrote about how parts work has been really integral in connecting to your authentic self as a Black girl and a Black woman at various points in your live(s). Particularly navigating the pressure to be more palatable. Could you share about what it's been like to use that art-making to reintegrate and love all these versions of you across time and space?

It's so interesting how, as a child, people were so invested in having me doubt myself. Making sure they communicated that the way I existed was incorrect. The questions that I asked were inappropriate. I was always labeled as doing me wrong. And as an adult, I've realized oh, people were just projecting their own nasty shit onto me and it’s up me now to like me. To love myself. To figure out and fully embody who I am instead of trying to craft together a simulated version based on random opinions.

“Origin Story” came together when I rescued this childhood photo of me. It was in my studio, this portrait, and I would stare at it, looking at this little girl like, who are you? I was looking at her and seeing my son. She also felt like a stranger. This formal portrait. My parents dressed me up and braided my hair that day. I wasn’t smiling and that was the only thing about the photo that felt familiar. So, I started playing with this photo, painting onto the glass, collaging on new outfits for myself, changing the background to envision a different setting. Just using items from around my house: clothes my great grandmother made, garments from Nigeria sent to me by my father, a balloon from when I came home from the hospital with my son. All these artifacts from my life.

And, like with “Wallpaper,” it became a bit of a compulsion. It become really important for me to shroud childhood me in the love I now actively work to surround myself with. I wanted to give her a little armor. Give her a little boost. Give her a little support, some costuming. Tell her that she is everything that she needs to be, she has everything that she needs to have, and she will get to a place where, irrespective of what the world is telling her, she can feel good. If she wants to, she can smile.

So, I ultimately designed a little scene for her (in Origin Story), and I realized, I was a fucking superhero.

That's such a beautiful thing to give to yourself. Just to honor yourself and yourselves in that way. When I saw Origin Story, immediately I was like, this is an altar. This is just creating a really sacred space for yourself. So thank you, that was so beautiful to hear about.

Origin Story, mixed media collage, 2023. As featured in Queer/Trans Magic Magazine: Shapeshifting.

Now, you’ve spoken to this a bit already, but I’m still curious — in your process of making these transportive objects, have you discovered or rediscovered anything that has surprised or excited you?

I think what it's reinforced for me is that I am where I need to be and my life is unfolding before me in the direction that it is supposed to. It is my only responsibility to show up. Show up and be present and trust that I will survive. If I stay grounded, the path will appear. And I can walk it and I don't have to just be pushed along. Even though it's like scary as hell out here, I can decide to walk that path. I probably rediscover that about life four or five times a week.

That's the thing that I love about making art. I'm living a life of intention and I am making choices, even if I don't necessarily understand what or why. I'm living a life of direction. At this point, making things happen is good enough for me. Feeling like I'm a participant in my life is good enough for me.

What you shared has got me thinking about another thing that you wrote in your submission. You wrote “the ironic thing about creating a society where children are taught not to trust what they are seeing, hearing, seeing, touching, and smelling is that some of them will come to realize that there is more to living than what one experiences through the five senses.” It's through that fundamental connection to the metaphysical that you found possibility.

That has just been sitting with me ever since reading your submission and got me thinking about these moments and points in time where our trust in our perception is fractured. They’re both a point of pain and a point for expansion. You really seemed to embrace both on your journey.

So my question for you from that is, where are you feeling the most sense of possibility or expansion in your creative life right now? We're talking so much about this trust in the process, and how the mystery is terrifying and simultaneously thrilling, but I'm wondering if you've got an inkling of a direction you're headed — where your metaphorical, magical carpet is taking you now.

Okay so this is where this is where I'm getting super vulnerable. I am a huge fan of The Real Housewives franchise. It is such a fascinating reflection of lived and performative “womanhood,” “motherhood” and “domesticity”. These women have completely remade themselves at a time when some women, in their 40s and 50s, can begin to feel invisible. Like you are the void that you simultaneously inhabit. And these women demanded that the world see them.

These are my presidents, my Beatles, my Mount Rushmore icons, my primary historical figures.

I've been working on different portraiture of them — my approximations of them. I’m really laboring over – making drafts and revising and experimenting with mediums and new materials. I’m not usually this precious about my work, but I’ve really enjoyed examining them and their place in my life and our culture. And I love that I’m exploring new subjects – not just me.

So, I've just been picking apart these women and trying to put them back together, sort of in my own image, to appropriately locate them in our cultural and political and social economic times as these prominent, influential and immensely distinctive figures. It feels insane, but I love what it’s bringing out of me.

Oh, wow, that sounds like such a rich project. Thank you so much for sharing all that you have in this conversation. The last little bit is, are there any upcoming projects or places where people can go see your work?

Yes, I recently started a creativity circle for mothers and caregivers. It's called For Sanity's Sake. Right now, it's a YouTube Channel at youtube.com/@sahmcreative and my plan for 2024 is to host some live and virtual events. Essentially, the goal is to help other caregivers who get, based on my experience, so engrossed in taking care of others that they lose quite a bit of themselves. It’s an invitation to have fun. Indulge. Enjoy. Be confused. Let it go. Doodle, draw, craft, collage or whatever your version of art is for two minutes, ten minutes, or twenty minutes.

Art making is how I play, and cope, remember, find optimism and tap into my unknowable self.  It makes me create something and then I get to be proud of myself for doing it. Caregivers have so much to be proud of, but that work frequently goes unheralded, so I created this virtual space to enable folks to give that gift to themselves.

How does the more-than-human world draw you close?

Queer/Trans Magic #1: Shapeshifting is available on Fortuna Major Press’ store as print and digital copies.

The second issue, Luxuria, will be releasing in late March/early April 2024. Follow Fortuna Major Press on Instagram @fortunamajorpress to stay connected for the official release date.