The world’s largest drawing is a love letter to Nigeria

Nigerian artist Fola David says he hasn’t been the same since he created the world’s largest drawing.

At 1,004.7 square metres — or nearly as big as four tennis courts — Unity of Diversity is a map of Nigeria filled with the country’s many different styles of food, dance, music, art, history and more.

It took David six days to draw it in black marker, hunched over in front of a crowd at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena, a football stadium in Lagos, in July.

But before he even started drawing, he travelled all over his home country to experience its myriad of cultures first hand.

“It did change me,” David, who lives in Lagos, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “It broadened my knowledge on Nigeria. It broadened my knowledge of myself, of what I can achieve if, you know, I set my mind to something.”

The artwork, done with permanent marker on canvas, broke the Guinness World Record for largest drawing by an individual, previously held by Indian artist Ravi Soni for his 629.98 square-metre drawing, Tree of Life.

Drawing in front of ‘the whole world’

David, an artist and medical doctor whose real name is Adefemi Gbadamosi, is known for his speed painting. He says he first got the idea to go for the Guinness record nine years ago.

“I usually paint in front of a large crowd or audience,” he said. “I wanted to see what it would be like to paint in front of the whole world.”

Over time, he began to realize this piece could be more than a personal challenge. It could be a love letter to Nigerian culture.

But he says that’s no easy feat, as there is no single Nigerian culture. The West African country is home to more than 200 million people, from more than  250 ethnic groups, speaking more than 500 languages.

David secured funding from Tolaram, a Singapore-based company that does business in Nigeria, to spend three months travelling the country during this past spring and summer in preparation for the drawing.

“I spoke to the political leaders. I spoke to cultural leaders to learn about these cultures. And then I spent time eating their food, listening to the music, the dance, the ceremonies they have,” he said.

“Nigeria is just so diverse, and I fell in love with so many different parts of the country.”

Doubled in size

The final piece was drawn over dozens of canvasses stitched together on the field, which took David and his collaborators two days to set up. 

Among the imagery depicted are a Yoruba cooking pot and cultural attire; periwinkle sea snails, a southern Nigerian delicacy; Benin bronze work; an Efik dancer, a mask of Queen Idia, historic leader of the Edo people; and the Ada and Abere, the state swords of Yorubaland.

At first, David says, he planned to fill roughly 800 square metre of canvas. But as he looked at the blank pages laid out on the field, he quickly realized it was too small for what he wanted to do.

“So I told everybody to get every single support they had out and increase the size,” he said. “We almost doubled it.”

Those pieces, he says, have since been dismantled and put into storage. 

“It’s very big,” he said.  “We had to cut it up.”

David says he’s working with his sponsor to create a permanent viewing centre for the piece. But in the meantime, he’s just glad to have reached the culmination of nearly a decade of dreaming.

“The people I met on my journey, the amount of time I’d spent as an artist, made this possible,” he said. “I feel very relieved and, you know, enlightened and just generally happy.”