Obituary: John Baker, Founding Trustee, Oitij-jo Collective
Portrait of John in his studio in Aberfeldy, Ruhul Abdin, August 2016
John Baker ( 1936-2022 )
The Oitij-jo Collective is sad to inform that our co-founding Trustee, John Baker passed away in March 2022, peacefully at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, London.
John co-founded the Oitij-jo Collective with us, from the first festival in 2012 at the Bargehouse on the South Bank, London. He has been an instrumental being in helping the team establish the charity, especially navigating the Charity Commission. For this and much more, we are both grateful and proud of his contribution to the charity over the years. Alongside working with us, we know John to be involved in many projects with fellow British Bangladeshi friends and colleagues. What has been remarkable about John in the decade+ we have known him, is his commitment to support and help those in need within the capacity he has. This has been his nature through the years we have known him. From helping with odd jobs in the new Oitij-jo space to helping make frames for exhibitions to attending important meetings, he has never been shy of getting his hands dirty. Age was really just a number to him, and his stubborn force to do what he cared about was clear. He spent time in his carpentry studio in Aberfeldy, inviting friends and the community around him to make things, to chat, to share a cup of tea. He had an appetite for carpentry, writing, and would spend hours agonising over many texts and translations. He had also more recently engaged with translations of various Bangla literature and music, and it allowed him to find many parallels within the worlds he occupied.
With any small organisation, the sudden loss provides space to reflect on the contributions made and also creates a vacuum to fill the shoes of someone so aware of the needs of the organisation.
Beyond that, he has been a friend with all of us individually. John was someone whom we confided in, worked with and hung out with. Ruhul has spent many days with him and his wife, drawing, sharing tea, discussing his work in Dhaka. Enamul has worked with him closely on translations for his Portraits of Baul project which may also have been over many pints in a pub. Maher and John have spent days going through needs for the new space from trying to solve the plumbing crisis to administration duties. Abbas has worked across issues around healthcare, to travelling together to work with Paraa in Dhaka to make experimental films with vulnerable urban children and much more. John was very much hands on in the activities where he wanted to be of use. His dynamism and enthusiasm and the decades of experience he brought to the charity is definitely going to be missed. This is of course a snippet in the life of John’s very colourful, productive life, and other friends, colleagues will have much more to remember him by. The stories will be cherished within Oitij-jo Collective and the many lives he has been able to touch through the charity.
John was a mentor, an advisor, a guide, and most importantly a friend for us all, and shown us how we can continue to work across multiple issues that we care about, especially projects related to arts and culture, pressing concerns in community building in London and as far as Bangladesh. His personal passion for art and culture is abundantly clear and the love he has invested in the Oitij-jo Collective is and will be visible for years to come.
The Oitij-jo Collective is sad to have lost John so soon, just as we are gearing towards even more exciting cultural projects, and know that the values he cared about, we shall pursue on.
John leaves his wife Margaret and their cat Herbert, his sister and family. He also leaves behind a team of people at Oitij-jo, multiple friends within the British Bangladeshi of London and the Bangladeshi community in Dhaka and so much more.
A large drawing of John and Margaret with Herbert, in their living room in Aberfeldy, London. Ruhul Abdin (2017)