ACQ - Toyin Lamas
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Toyin Oladele is an experienced performing artist, curator and arts administrator who has a passion for community engagement as well as arts-based event planning and production. Her ability to combine the arts with community spaces has allowed her to make positive connections to inspire inclusivity and a love for learning and the arts. Toyin also founded the Immigrant Council for Arts Innovation (ICAI) in 2019 and is currently the organization’s Executive Director.
While promoting social change through inclusivity and mentorship in the arts, she also finds the time to create artistic projects and perform. Through working with artists from different backgrounds and creative styles, she has gained experience in diverse artforms. Toyin prides herself in her ability to unearth the story in any situation and to share it with the world in the most beautiful way – art is not just an expression, it is a voice that keeps speaking long after you are dead and gone!
Arts Commons is excited that Toyin will be bringing her talent and unstoppable energy to an upcoming TD Amplify Cabaret this spring. We were able to chat with Toyin last week so she could answer our Arts Commons Questionnaire (ACQ) in order to get to know this vibrant Calgarian artist better.
What’s your idea of perfect happiness?
My ideal of perfect happiness would be to live every day the way you want it, on your own terms.
And I know that it might not be very easy because so many things affect the way we do things, cultural influence, community, society, family … but do your best and you will be way happier. I love the fact that you said perfect happiness because the truth is that there are always things that you're still working on but if you wake up every day and do what you are going to do very intentionally, you'll be happy without knowing it - perfectly.
Which living person do you most admire?
I'm going to say babies. Not one baby in particular, but babies because of what it is like to be a baby. They live on their own terms. If they want something they cry, if they want to sleep, they sleep. Nobody tells them that they need to go to school or need to go to work. They live to their own needs.
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
I’d say patience is an overrated virtue. I think I might get misunderstood when I say this, but there is a cultural aspect to my experience. Where I come from, you hear a lot about patience, about how things will happen on their own terms at their own time, but I've come to realize that it's overrated.
Things won't happen in their own way. You have to make them happen. You have to be the one to change. You can't just say, let's be patient because one day the world will see that black people are great. You have to show the world that you are great if they don't want to accept you.
Patience is a good virtue that you should have but at some point you need to get up and change things.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Self-knowledge and knowing myself is what I consider my greatest achievement. Actually getting to meet myself and getting to know myself for who I am.
What's your most memorable arts experience?
The very first day that I ever appeared on TV. It was for a pre-recorded performance. I wasn't sure of the time it was going to air and I waited the whole day for this show to come up. I was going to go for dinner with a friend that evening, and as soon as I stepped out of the house the show came on. My dad heard me singing on TV and came running outside in a towel and covered in soap (because he’d been in the shower). We were just laughing at him and we didn’t realize until later that it was because he was trying to tell me that I was on TV. I never actually saw myself on TV, but I’ll never forget that day.
Where is your favourite place to exhibit/perform?
It's my room, all is my room.
You have 2 hours of chill time, where do you go and what do you do?
I would most likely will be in my room or in my office and I would just use it to just relax. I'd probably watch movies in my mother tongue. It’s so nice to watch Nigerian movies and my mother tongue.
Where's your favorite place in Calgary to eat?
I don't know yet interestingly enough because I go here about three years ago and with everything, I don't go out of food often. Even a few times that I've gone out it's usually to just a Chinese restaurant. I'm hoping maybe when we're finally free from COVID I'll go out a little bit more and find out.
What's your life motto?
What is most important to me and the way I live my life is to be self aware. When you asked me what my greatest achievement is, I said meeting myself. I realized that when people are conscious of their everyday actions and when take note of everything that they’re doing you become for it.
With time you will discover that there are those things about you that are wrong and those things that are good, and gradually you're going to become a better person through this observation of yourself. Self awareness is my number one value.
The TD Amplify Series is made possible by the generous support of the TD Bank Group.
