Crafted beauty #4: "Detty December", a visual story

A short film and reading on Decembers in Lagos

As my final offering for the year, I’m excited to share my visual story, “Detty December”. Further down, I provide context on this project .

*Background music attribution at the bottom of the page.

If there is one thing I am proud of myself for this year, it is how I have grown creatively and followed different storytelling directions through this page. This piece is no different. I had written a lyrical piece, called “Spotting Lagos”, which I posted on here in October, about Decembers in Lagos from my perspective. (This is linked at the end of this post). When people emphasise “detty december”, they are usually speaking of the enjoyment and excitement of this period in Lagos, with the numerous activities and events, and the characteristic return of some members of the Nigerian diaspora. In my piece, I wanted to capture the complexity of emotions that may be felt in this time. On one side, by those of the diaspora, like myself, who come back to the country of their birth as visitors, to a place that is half-home and half-not, who may experience some degree of distance as a result. And, on the other side, by those who live here, who have to suspend their realities and engage in an act of forgetting in order to participate in the festivities.

This month, I decided to revisit this piece and tell the story in a different way. So, I took extracts of my lyrical piece, recorded myself reading them, and matched my voice to various images from my holidays in Lagos over the years, including from this year. This was both fun and challenging for me, as I explored new creative dimensions of video-editing, but I am really proud of what I produced. I’m also thankful to my brothers for agreeing to feature in this; and to my younger brother in particular, who appears in various sections. I hope you enjoy this story. I hope it resonates.

Please do let me know your thoughts in the comments, and please feel free to share this piece with others! I would like to reach more people who this might resonate with.

As this is my last piece for the year, I would like to say a big thank you for being here, for engaging with my stories. It means more than you know. To 2024 and more beauty for all of us.

If you would like to read the full lyrical piece that this visual story is based on, it is linked below:

*Music attribution for “Detty December”: Instrumentals of “Dimension” by JAE5, Skepta and Rema; instrumentals of “Outside” by BNXN; and instrumental of “Understand” by Omah Lay.

Prompt:

What emotions has this festive period left you with? Write about it and share it with me (by sending it on instagram, or replying by email if you’re a subscriber) in the next week, and it will go up on the Instagram page.