I HAVE NO IDOLS

a meditation on inner knowing, the shadow of a military regime, and the quiet lessons it leaves behind.

self-portrait - Casual, On My Favourite Sofa - [2017]

Disclaimer: this essay has been edited since its original publication.

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I’ve never had an idol.

Not in the way I saw others have. Not a single celebrity, brand, or public figure I could point to and say, “That. That’s what I want to be.”

At the start of my practice back in the early 2010s, I found myself surrounded by brilliance: fellow dreamers and makers who could speak—with awe and clarity—of the people who shaped their aspirations. There was always a someone: an artist they’d die to work with, a company that felt like the holy grail, a figure whose path lit their own.

I remember sitting in those conversations with a quiet sort of confusion. I respected their choices, but I just couldn’t…relate. There was no external figure who shaped my vision. I had never known the experience of being “a fan”. And, I admittedly have a repulsion to those who do [I make no apologies for this, though I understand the sentiment].

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At the onset of my practice, I had a rare opportunity to photograph a set for Kendrick Lamar during their shows in North Carolina. And suddenly, people who had overlooked my work before began praising it. Not for its composition, nor for its clarity or point of view, but because of who it captured. Because proximity to power excites people more than the discipline it takes to hone your own.

I remember smiling, saying thank you, but feeling a quiet dissonance in my chest. Because nothing about that work marked a turning point in my creative voice. What it did mark, though, was a turning point in how I understood other people’s obsession with proximity, with celebrity, and with access as currency.

I thought, for a while, that this meant something was missing in me. Until I realised: my North Star was inward. And it always had been.

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When asked what my ultimate goal was, I’d often say: “to reach self-fulfilment.” Imagine that? At 19, 20—when so much of the world still felt like a dare—my deepest ambition was simply to become myself.

It sounds romantic now, but it was mostly quiet, and often isolating. Earnest. A truth I carried without needing to shout. There is a kind of freedom that comes with having no idols.

When you have no one to emulate, you build in a language of your own. And when there’s no blueprint other than yourself, you don’t just create; you originate.

I think part of this disposition comes from where and how I grew up.

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image c/o Amnesty International

Under military rule in Nigeria, public figures weren’t glorified; they were silenced. Nollywood, Afrobeats—the entertainment industry hadn’t yet become what it is today. And the people who did rise to public attention often did so through activism that ended in exile, imprisonment, or worse. Think: Fela Kuti.

To my surprise, I learnt that the Nigerian government posthumously pardoned the Ogoni Nine earlier this month. Among the nine were: Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, John Kpuine and the frequently referenced, Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Writers. Environmentalists. Organisers. Executed in 1995 by the Abacha regime I grew up under for daring to speak against the destruction of their land and people. That act of state violence was intended not just to eliminate them, but to send a message. To be visible—to be audibly principled—was to forfeit safety.

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And so for me, visibility never came without consequence. It was never just aesthetic. Never just branding. It felt like an assignment. A duty. Something to be held with care and caution. A life you had to mean. So, I patiently paced my growth.

As an immigrant, especially in those early years, I remember a deep reluctance toward being “seen.” Not because I didn’t want recognition. But because I wanted to exist fully within whatever space my visibility made room for. To speak only when I could offer more than performance. To be legible and anchored. To show up, not just with art, but with intention and activism braided through it.

The posthumous pardon of the Ogoni 9 only deepens this awareness. Even in death, they remain a lesson in what it costs to disrupt systems. And a mirror for why I’ve long subscribed to an absence of idols.

Because I do not believe we were meant to worship people; we were meant to study them. To listen. To carry forward what they couldn’t. Not by canonising them, but by continuing the work. My relationship with visibility remains shaped by these truths:

1. That to be seen is not inherently liberating.

2. That silence is sometimes a strategy, and other times, a wound.

3. That my work must always extend beyond the frame.

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img c/o my archive - Of The Soil and Soul - [2017] - made in Enugu, Nigeria

So as you can see: fame wasn’t aspirational. It was liability. I didn’t grow up with idols; I grew up with caution. And that caution, over time, deepened my sense of discernment. Discernment not just for the work, but for the energy behind the work. For the veiled intentions people carry, even when they think they’ve hidden them well.

Call it intuition. Call it pattern recognition.
Either way, I have always known. That’s the nature of internal knowing: it’s clarifying and insistent. It doesn’t waver, even when the world demands performance.

It became direction. The deep knowing that what I’m here to build doesn’t already exist in someone else’s image. That I’m not following a blueprint. I am the blueprint.

There’s no single person who encapsulates what I want. And yet, I know what I am meant to be. I feel it, even now. Even when it’s hard to name. Even when I am unsure of the path.

Because I exist, I know it is possible.
Because I am here, I know it can be done.

Still…there is something steady in me. Something planted by the sacrifices of those who came before. And I think that’s what I’ve come to understand most about visibility:

That it is not the light that defines you,
but the intention you carry into it.

The work is sacred. The voice, too. And when I choose to speak—when I choose to be seen—I do so not to perform, but to participate in the making of something truer. Something more “me”.

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Trace Elements

I usually conclude my letters with a soundtrack, quote and prompt, but honestly I am sharing this to push through functional freeze. I have had this sitting in my drafts since late May, and worse: it is an iteration of an essay I wrote back in August 2012. To dance with this freeze, I have created a space for more…intuitive writing: Teff’s Theories. Hope I’ll see you there!

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About The Author

Teff is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, creative consultant, and cultural strategist devoted to the slow, sacred work of remembering. Through writing, image-making, and language work, she explores visibility, belonging, and the rituals that return us to ourselves. What the mo[u]rning knows is her living archive—an offering for those navigating the tension between collapse and becoming, silence and self-definition.