To Have and to Hold: Basheera Abdulsalam

The Kaduna Fashion and Art Festival (KAFART) is back this year for its 6th overall edition and 1st edition as a biennial. The theme is “To Have and to Hold.” We had earlier spoken to the festival director, Ganiyat Sani, about what this edition promises. We spotlight some of the exhibiting artists and designers, asking them questions about their creative origins, their distinct interpretations of the theme, and how their heritage and local communities shape the narratives they choose to preserve against the threat of erasure.

Take us back to where your relationship with art began. What are your earliest memories of making, and who or what first made you feel that creating was something you could do, and perhaps needed to do?

I have always been drawn to art, poetry, and learning. Growing up, art became a way for me to bring my different interests together and express thoughts and feelings that were sometimes difficult to put into words. My family has also been very supportive of my journey, and that encouragement has meant so much to me. Studying painting at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, helped me understand the possibilities of art and how I could use it to communicate my ideas. Over time, painting has become a great love of mine and a way for me to explore the things I feel, observe, remember, and find beautiful.

This year’s theme, “To Have and to Hold,” asks what we choose to hold, what we let go, and the cost of holding on. When you first sat with those words, what did they stir in you, and how do they show up in the work you’re bringing to KAFART?

The theme made me think about the things we inherit without always realising it: gestures, traditions, memories, and the ways we care for one another. Some of these things stay with us through ordinary, everyday experiences, while others change as we grow and move through life.

This became the starting point for the body of work I am presenting at KAFART. I became interested in the hands that prepare, hold, give, and receive, and how these simple actions connect us to our families, our culture, and previous generations. For me, holding on does not always mean preserving something exactly as it was. Sometimes, it means allowing it to change while keeping its meaning.

Tell us about the piece, or body of work, you’re exhibiting. What is the story behind it, and what do you hope someone feels or understands when they stand in front of it?

I am exhibiting two paintings, What We Hold and What We Pass On, both made in 2026. They form the beginning of a larger body of work titled Hands That Fed Us, which explores food, care, the body, and memory.

In What We Hold, multiple hands gather around a clay vessel containing hibiscus flowers, while a smaller hand reaches into the composition from below. What We Pass On develops this idea further through overlapping hands, vessels containing hibiscus flowers, and a claypot holding turmeric powder. The hands suggest the continuous exchange between generations through acts of giving, receiving, preparing, and nurturing.

I use layered colour, expressive brushwork, and leaf-like patterns to bring these forms together. I hope viewers connect with the intimacy of the hands, their gestures also reflect on the people, experiences, and everyday acts of care that have shaped who they are.

Tell us about the piece, or body of work, you’re exhibiting. What is the story behind it, and what do you hope someone feels or understands when they stand in front of it?

My process often begins with an idea, a feeling, a dream, music, or something I find beautiful or interesting. I then go on to sketch, experiment with materials, and consider which medium best conveys what I want to explore. I work across painting, drawing, watercolour, and digital media, and I enjoy discovering how each medium offers different possibilities.

For these paintings I will exhibit in KAFART, I worked with oil and acrylic on canvas, building up the compositions gradually through colour, expressive brushwork, and repeated marks. I began by considering the placement and interaction of the hands and vessels, then introduced organic patterns and leaf-like forms as the paintings developed.

KAFART asks what endures in the face of erasure and forgetting. Is there a story, tradition, skill or memory from your culture, family or community that you feel is at risk of being lost, and how does your work help you hold onto it?

I think about the everyday cultural practices that can gradually disappear or change as generations move forward. The preparation and sharing of food, the use of familiar vessels, and the gestures through which knowledge is passed from one person to another may seem ordinary, but they carry a great deal of history and meaning.

In Hands That Fed Us, I want to pay attention to these experiences before they become distant memories. The hands, claypots, flowers, and organic patterns allow me to explore how culture is carried through lived experience rather than only through formal traditions. My work is not necessarily about preserving everything exactly as it was, but about recognising what these practices have given us and what we continue to carry forward.

What does it mean to you to show your work at KAFART, and how has your community, your city and the way you grew up shaped the way you see and make?

KAFART is meaningful to me because it provides an opportunity to share my work, connect with other creatives, and be part of conversations around art and culture in Northern Nigeria. Having participated in KAFART in 2023, it is lovely to return with a practice that continues to evolve.

My experiences, the people I have encountered, and the time I have spent in different places have influenced how I see and make art. Living and studying in Northern Nigeria has also exposed me to cultural expressions, colours, patterns, and histories that continue to inform my visual language. I am interested in how personal experiences connect with wider cultural narratives, and how painting can make those connections visible without needing to explain everything literally.

What is the work you haven’t made yet that excites you most, and what do you hope people carry with them after experiencing your work at KAFART?

I am excited about continuing to explore the relationship between, identity, emotional, and cultural change. I want to develop Hands That Fed Us further, exploring more gestures, objects, and moments of exchange, while allowing my use of colour, line, brushwork, and organic forms to evolve.

Alongside this, my ongoing MFA research explores cultural change among Fulani women, particularly the absence of the Fulani milkmaid in nomadic contexts. This has encouraged me to think more deeply about how absence can be expressed through painting, and how techniques such as dripping can suggest rainfall, movement, and transformation.

I hope people leave KAFART with a renewed appreciation for the things that often go unnoticed: the people who care for us, the memories we carry, and the small gestures that connect us across generations. Sometimes, the things that shape us most are also the easiest to overlook.