For 9th LagosPhoto Festival, photographers reflect on 'Time Has Gone'

 By Eniola Daniel

Artist, Amanda Iheme; Designer, Nifemi Marcus-Bello; Assistant Director, African Artists’ Foundation, Charlotte Langhorst; Curator, Wunika Mukan; U.S. Consular General, Lagos, Russel Brooks, and Director Alliance Française Lagos, Charles Courdent in Lagos to announce the 9th edition edition of Lagos Photo Festival. Photo: Eniola Daniel

When photographers converge for the ninth edition of Lagos Photo Festival holding at the Federal Printing Press Building, Lagos on October 27, photographers from across the world will show how ‘Time Has Gone’.

About 500 exhibitors are expected to participate at the event with four female curators from three countries.

The festival will feature, workshops, artist presentations, discussions, screening and large scale outdoor installations in congested public spaces in Lagos.

Lagos Photo Festival aims at providing a platform for development of contemporary photography in Africa through mentorships and cross-cultural collaborations with local and international artists.

Since inception, the festival has continued to provide a platform for the improvement and progression of professional and emerging photographic talent in a comprehensive public programming initiative that includes, workshops, artist presentations, and portfolio reviews facilitated by prominent local and international artists

This year’s theme, Time Has Gone, and conversation of interest is intended to explore contemporary dialogues surrounding different facets of time.

Artists from around the world have been invited to discuss and wrestle with this idea of urgency. Each, in their own way, would investigate the practices of archiving, preservation, imagining the possibility of an Afro-based future, putting an end to a “time that is up” or the never-ending desire to reinterpret a past, laden with both nostalgia and hidden phantoms.

Speaking on the festival at the African Artists Foundation, Victoria Island, Lagos, the organiser and Assistant Director, African Artists’ Foundation, Charlotte Langhorst, who is also one of the curators, said, “for the first time, we will have a female version of LagosPhoto, with four young female curators coming from very diverse backgrounds: Eva Barois DeCaevel (French Senegalese), Wunika Mukan (Nigerian), Valentine Umansky (French) and one German.

Twenty out of 27 invited artists are female visual artists and female photographers, which is very rare, especially in the field of photography, they include, Alfredo Jaar from Chile, Mary Evans (British-Nigerian), Charlotte Yonga (Cameroon-French), Crazinist (Ghana).”

She explained that the organisation’s contribution to women empowerment is not nurtured by a feminist rhetoric but rather a light footed and natural understanding of making space for a strong female perspective in the arts.

With our sponsors, the Mike Adenuga Centre, National Geographic, the US Consulate General, Lagos, British Council. Alliance Francaise Institute, and others, this year’s festival will be remarkable.

On the prizes for competitors, she said a continent wide open call will go out with the winning portfolio being awarded $5,000.

On his part, the U.S. Consular General, Lagos, Russel Brooks, who spoke on the US initiative, Naija Gems, stressed that the Consulate is pleased to collaborate with the African Artists’ Foundation to help realise this year’s stellar Lagos photo exhibition.

“In addition to providing support for this year’s show, the Lagos Photo Festival will exhibit ‘Naija Gems’,” he said. “Ambassador W. Stuart Symington, who has visited all 36 states in Nigeria, inspired the Naija Gems photography contest. He thought the wonderful sights that he witnessed should be shared with all Nigerians and people interested in Nigeria.”