Published by PM News Nigeria, this review by Okechukwu Uwaezuoke explores Lateefat Tobun's The Weight We Carryas an examination of migration's aftermath rather than its journey.
The article focuses on the painting's solitary bowed figure and expansive white space, interpreting the work as a meditation on the inherited obligations, memories and histories that continue to shape identity long after physical movement has ended. Rather than depicting migration as a singular event, the review considers it as a continuing condition carried through memory and attachment.
Uwaezuoke highlights the significance of the painting's wax-print patterns, noting their layered histories of exchange, adaptation and colonial trade routes. In this reading, culture is not something external to the self but part of the body's construction, making inheritance both sustaining and burdensome.
The review argues that The Weight We Carry avoids easy distinctions between resilience and hardship, instead presenting belonging as a form of weight whose significance comes partly from what it asks us to carry. Through its restrained composition and symbolism, the work invites reflection on identity not simply as something we create, but as something we continue to bear.
