Olu Oke

Olu Oke is a multi-disciplinary storyteller. Olu Oke has been illustrating, printmaking, teaching and writing for over 25 years. In 2023 they added oral storytelling to their Chronicler’s repertoire.

There is an instantaneous connection between a story, the teller, and their audience.

This bond, is the primordial act of communal teaching and learning. Listening to my mother and my aunts ‘talk’ while I de-shelled black eye peas for moi-moi at the kitchen table is a core memory. Their mixture of euphemisms, folklore, gossip, facts and family history has given me a rich bases for my own storytelling.

What I want to achieve through mentoring:

In a period of domestic and global turbulence there is a deep-seated need to once again call upon oral storytellers to help us navigate these times. That ability to hold a collection of tales that deal with a range of social and personal issues which can then be edited and moulded promptly, is invaluable. As a child of immigrants, a Gen X-er and a mother my present story collection is a fusion of European folklore, pigeon-Yoruba, and the South London no-nonsense sensibilities! During my mentorship, I hope to refine my collection of tales and sharpen the practice of telling them to a diverse audience, in which I grew up and still live in.

Olu Oke