Brothers’ poster project explores belief systems

When Olaoluwakitan “Ola” Oyenuga was young, he became obsessed with understanding how two people with the same experiences can have different perspectives on life.

Now 25, Ola and his older brother Oluwatobiloba “Tobi” Oyenuga, an Algonquin College student in the film and media production program, are collaborating on a Kickstarter campaign to launch the sale of their poster design that explores the balance between psychology and philosophy.

“It did start as sort of a research project, but also something that I wanted to look beautiful,” Ola said.

Ola first had the chance to create a poster when he studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto.

“We had an assignment to create a map. We could design it however we wanted to. I was in a group with two other designers, one who is an atheist and another who is Muslim,” Ola said.

“I had this idea that had been turning over in the back of my head for the past 20-something years of my life. They liked it.”

Ola’s idea was to tackle the concept of how people develop their beliefs and how they process the world around them.

“Since we all had these very different world views, it also seemed kind of fitting,” Ola said.

Ola had been mulling over this idea since childhood. Raised in Lagos, Nigeria until he was 12, Ola was surrounded by various cultures and philosophies.

“Lagos is an ethnic medley,” Ola said. “There’s people from all sorts of backgrounds and belief systems there.”

“One of our close childhood neighbours was a Muslim family, and we’re from a Christian family. My parents raised us to see people who didn’t hold our Christian belief as still perfectly good people,” Ola said.

Having graduated and working as a graphic designer, Ola refined the poster into an academic work of art he could share after years in the making.

He calls the poster a “compass of truth.”

“It’s a way to guide the viewer through how information gets into our minds, and how it gets out of our minds and also what happens in the middle,” Ola said.

Ola hopes the poster will “help people navigate those influences that go on behind the scenes, those biases and coercive influences that affect us.”

The poster’s concept explains how people’s perception is formed. There are two prologues in the poster’s content.

“The first one is the origin of faith,” Ola said. “It explains how we live in this universe and we have this fundamental assumption that the world we live in makes sense.

Assuming the world makes sense is the foundation for science and academics. Since science deals with theory, it is a form of faith, according to Ola.

The second section of the poster is “wrestling with truth.”

“No matter how hard we try, we will never actually get to the truth, but we try anyways,” Ola said.

Ola would talk to his older brother Tobi about his poster ideas. The more Ola mentioned his poster, the more Tobi became invested in and involved in the project.

“He started pitching ideas to me and I would put in some input and there was a synergy going on,” Tobi said. “What started as a project that he was focusing on, became this thing that we were working on together.”

Together, the brothers are launching a Kickstarter campaign to sell the poster. They’re calling it Project Aster, a name inspired by Greek Mythology meaning “star.”

“In their culture, it symbolized wisdom and beauty. The poster, in a lot of ways, is meant to inspire wisdom,” Ola said. “It’s an artwork itself.”

Tobi is trying to raise awareness about the project by shooting a documentary about their crowdfunding process before their Kickstarter launch date, estimated in June or July.

Tobi sees his documentary as an opportunity to sharpen his storytelling skills.

“I’m an animator, there are a lot of characters and stories I want to tell. Do my stories matter? Can I tell my stories well?”

Film crew member Douglas Campbell estimated filming would be finished by April.

Once their Kickstarter is launched, Ola and Tobi have 30 days to reach their goal of $30,000. Those who put a down payment of one dollar towards the poster can get a $10 discount off the total $50 cost.

While following the “compass of truth,” the Oyenuga brothers hope the poster can inspire self-reflection.

“It’s a constant reminder of that necessity to have intellectual humility in the pursuit of truth,” Tobi said.

“The world is complicated, and I think we’re all doing our best to make sense of it,” Ola said. “So I think we should be more empathetic.”