“Making a plan is designing your future, crossing your fingers, praying… a pony tail, a choreography, the shape of countries like Mali.”
Cristina De Middel, LagosPhoto Curator
LagosPhoto is the first and only international arts festival of photography in Nigeria. The theme of this sixth edition is Designing Futures. The Festival opens on 24 October and will last until 27 November. LagosPhoto presents photography as it is embodied in the exploration of historical and contemporary issues, the promotion of social programmes, and the reclaiming of public spaces. LagosPhoto 2015 will feature thirty-five photographers spanning eighteen countries.
LagosPhoto Festival Designing Futures positions the relationships between African design, the design of Africa and our understanding of how we may design Africa, as the platform to discuss our past, present and future intentions. With history, circumstance and fantasy as significant pointers of the lens-based projects exhibited, Designing Futures highlights crucial aspects of ‘making’ that come into play in African signs and design dialogues.
The making of image, identity, desire, ecology, and even culture are explored through advertising, textiles, portraiture, factual and conceptual photography; these offer tangible and esoteric backdrops to how we process, navigate and inhabit the realms of a future Africa.
LagosPhoto aims to provide a platform for the development and education of contemporary photography in Africa by establishing mentorships and cross-cultural collaborations with local and international artists. In a month long programme, events include exhibitions, workshops, artist presentations, discussions, screenings, and large scale outdoor installations in congested public spaces in Lagos.
LagosPhoto opens to the public on October 24th, 2015 at Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos. Satellite exhibition venues in arts and cultural spaces throughout the city extend to Omenka Gallery, Africans Artists’ Foundation, Stranger Lagos, Goethe-Institut, Nimbus Gallery, Alara Concept Store, A White Space Gallery, Yaba Tech, Quintessence. Outdoor exhibitions in public spaces in Lagos include Muri Okunola Park, Falomo Roundabout (Ikoyi), Awojobi Park (Onike), and Freedom Park.
Teresa Sartore
