LagosPhoto 2019
Passports as the theme of LagosPhoto Festival 2019. In the digital world, globalization appears egalitarian and desirable, however once being a cosmopolitan becomes physical, the inequity of possessing a privileged or non-privileged passport becomes evident. Traveling the world freely, without being a subject of scrutiny or suspicion is still – and maybe more than ever – impossible for a large percentage of the world population, because the “the value” of a passport is measured by calculating its “visa-free score” (VFS). Though globally, we often anticipate the same values, fashions, religions and encounter comparable challenges, irrespective of regions and climate zones, we still live in a narrow and immobile world that prevents fluctuating lifestyles and existences outside of the digital space.
A passport entitles the holder to enter and leave a territory. The most important element, the data page, formally claims to certify our identity based on standardized categories of nationality, gender and looks. Yet the options available automatically foster stereotypes in terms of sex, race and credibility. Passports is the theme of the 10th edition of LagosPhoto Festival and it intends to delve into the constraints and prospects of the most important official document a human being owns/holds.
This year’s edition aims to bring alive, an alternative global environment in which artists of different nationalities are invited to explore options of creating a fluid and permeable world, where nationality, gender and historical imbalances are secondary. Through the course of a decade, the LagosPhoto festival has proven to be a space where artists can meet on neutral ground to share ideas, innovation and capacities. Thus, the jubilee edition especially concentrates on the reciprocal energies the LagosPhoto festival has experienced in past years and will open the discussion of how we can create a flexible and more egalitarian world within the existing global restrictions.
What are the options of living freely in a world that will be determined by borders? LagosPhoto invites artists to consider the festival platform as a laboratory for ideas and a safe place for experimenting with open forms of identity, creating new categories of an international passport that allows for diversity. What kind of passport could certify and authorize these overarching values? The 10th edition of LagosPhoto will present artists who are able to find answers or sustainable alternatives and who believe in a versatile world that is not based on utopias but routed in the way we already live.
Exhibiting Artists at lagosPhoto Festival 2019
- Aàdesokan (Nigeria)
- Halima Abubakar (Nigeria)
- Toluade Adekuoroye (Nigeria)
- Isabella Agbaje (Nigeria)
- Margaret Agbaje (Nigeria)
- Taibat Ajiboye (Nigeria)
- Jenevieve Aken (Nigeria)
- Fiasco Alexia (France)
- AnAkA (USA)
- Nelly Ating (Nigeria)
- Olayinka Babalola (Nigeria)
- Jamil G. Baldwin (America )
- David Baptiste (Haiti)
- Magda Biernat (Poland)
- Flávio Cardoso(Angola)
- Joana Choumali (Ivory coast)
- Ella Eduozor (Nigeria)
- Vanessa Endeley (Nigeria)
- Philip Fagbeyiro (Nigeria)
- Rahima Gambo (Nigeria)
- Maimouna Guerresi (Italy)
- Kelvin Haizel (Ghana)
- Dan Halter (Zimbabwe)
- Chibueze Hermes Iyele ( Nigeria)
- Mahmood Hojeij (Lebanon)
- Klein(Nigeria)
- Benedicte Kurzen (France)
- Mous Lamrabat (Morocco)
- Loyiso Mkize (South Africa)
- Rubén Martín de Lucas (Spain)
- Johnny Miller (South Africa)
- William Moore (Nigeria)
- Nengi Nelson (Nigeria)
- Somi Nwandu (Nigeria)
- Chukwuka Nwobi (Nigeria)
- Joseph Obanubi (Nigeria)
- Daniel Obasi (Nigeria)
- Anthony Obayomi (Nigeria)
- Eniola Odunuga (Nigeria)
- Ife Ofulue (Nigeria)
- Uzoma Orji (Nigeria)
- Adeolu Osibodu (Nigeria)
- Gaelen Pinnock (South Africa)
- Tabita Rezaire (France)
- Stephen Tayo (Nigeria)
- Dustin Thierry (Curacao)
- Maya-Ines Touam (France/Algeria)
- Sanne de Wilde (Belgium)
- Nguher Zaki (Nigeria)
Curatorial team
Azu Nwagbogu (Head Curator)
Azu Nwagbogu is the Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non- profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria. Nwagbogu was elected as the Director/ Chief Curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in South Africa from June 2018 to August 2019. Nwagbogu also serves as Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, an annual international arts festival of photography held in Lagos.
He is the creator of Art Base Africa, a virtual space to discover and learn aboutcontemporary African Art. Nwagbogu served as a juror for the Dutch Doc, POPCAP Photography Awards, the World press Photo, Prisma Photography Award (2015), Greenpeace Photo Award (2016), New York Times Portfolio Review (2017-18), W. Eugene Smith Award (2018), Photo Espana (2018) and is a regular juror for organisations such as Lensculture and Magnum
Maria Pia Bernardoni (Curator)
Maria Pia Bernardoni is a photography curator with a special connection with Africa and particular interest in managing intercultural art projects that offer a different perspective of gender and migration issues, and help create positive change.
Since 2015 she is the curator of international exhibitions for the African Artists’ Foundation and LagosPhoto festival. In this capacity, she has co-curated the exhibition “Day your Lane” at Bozar Museum in Bruxelles and “Tear my Bra” at Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2016. She also curated the exhibition “AfricAfrica” at Palazzo Litta in Milan in 2018. She was part of the curatorial team for the 6th edition of LagosPhoto Festival, in Nigeria in 2017. In parallel, Maria Pia has been developing projects around migration and hosting issues in Europe. She recently collaborated to Patrick Willocq’s project “My Story is a Story of Hope”, and directed the short film “If I Left My Country”, both shown at Les Rencontres d’Arles 2018. She is also a certified lawyer.
DR. Charlotte Langhorst (Curator)
Charlotte Langhorst, PhD, is Assistant Director of the African Artists’ Foundationin Lagos/Nigeria, a non-profit organisation that promotes contemporary artists in Africa and also serves as an academic hub within the region. She is one of the curators at large of LagosPhoto Festival 2018. Whilst being based in West Africa for more than six years, she held the position of a research assistant at the University of Ghana, worked as a visiting lecturer at the Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development in Cairo, Egypt and as an affiliated researcher at the University of Lagos, Nigeria.
Princess Ayoola, Marco Bianchessi and Ugochuckwu Emebiriodo are appointed as curatorial assistants.
Key Dates
- Sunday, October 27th: LagosPhoto Portfolio Review Award
- Sunday, October 27th: LagosPhoto Grand Opening Reception ( Federal Government Press Liason Office )
- October 27th – November 2nd: LagosPhoto Professional Week
- Saturday November 2nd: LagosPhoto Concert.
Other mediums
Music by Emeka Ogboh
Emeka Ogboh is a Nigerian sound and installation artist best known for his sound scapes of life in Lagos. Trained as an artist, he began working with sounds that characterise cites following an Egyptian multimedia art program. Emeka will bring his unmatched sound to the stage of LagosPhoto events this year.
Performance by Hermes Iyele
Path is a journey in movement of/to self-discovery, reinventing what is from whatwas. Questioning history, religion, believes in reference to acceptance with focuson vulnerability. Deconstructing the old to form a new. the piece will address thewar within, the world on the outside, the subconscious pain of denial, the grace ofacceptance, and the peace of completion. This beautiful dance will be showcased atLagosPhoto 2019.
Poet by the bottle: A monologue
The play titled Poet By the Bottle follows the thoughts of a drunk poet as he tries to get to sleep but is constantly interrupted by Nigerian and existential problems. The play tries to cover some issues like politics, religion, parental expectation, colonisation and other such issues. Much like the works of Simon Beckett, this play in mostly theme focused, experimental, and loose on plot, though not at all void of narrative structure. This play will be showcased at LagosPhoto 2019
