Exploring Promised Lands at ART X Lagos 2024

West Africa Weekly was live at ART X Lagos 2024.

ART X Lagos 2024 was the ninth edition of West Africa’s premier international art fair, reaffirming Lagos’ pivotal role in living and creating culture across the continent. Since its founding in 2016 by Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, ART X Lagos has grown into a dynamic platform that spotlights the diversity of African art and its diaspora. This year’s edition once again reaffirmed Lagos as a connecting dot that bridges African heritage with the rest of the world in contemporary culture by bringing together artists, collectors, and art enthusiasts from around the globe.

The setting for this year’s fair was “Promised Lands,” an idea that charmed the audiences by looking at diverse hopes and dreams shaping modern Africa. This is the theme, Peterside-Schwebig says,

Inviting artists and audiences to contemplate particularly potential natural and imagined spaces within which the notion of freedom and opportunity is reimagined for African societies fraught with socio-political and economic concerns.

That theme echoed through the exhibitions, galleries, and installations of the fair to show resilience as participants look into the dreams that fuel the creative evolution of Africa.

One of the headline exhibitions at the fair was Restless Cities: From Lagos to the World by Andrew Dosunmu. A Lagos-born but New York-based filmmaker and photographer, Dosunmu came home for his maiden solo exhibition in Africa. His work gave an excellent example of the kinetic energy of Lagos and other urban cities as a depiction of an “intricate interplay between daily life and the city’s incessant motion.” Dosunmu made urban life in this collection resonate as lived and breathed, showing how cities like Lagos become epicentres of culture and connection that link people across the African diaspora.

The other central installation, Mark-Makers: Unsung Pioneers, celebrated African trailblazers whose legacies continue to inspire. Curated by Missla Libsekal, Fikayo Adebajo, and Haily Grenet, the exhibition underlined personalities such as Jonathan Adagogo Green-one of the very first photographers from Nigeria-and Nana Asma’u, a great poet and intellectual in the Sokoto Caliphate. These icons, defying conventional barriers in their own time, paved the way for future African leaders in art, science, and activism. Mark-Makers was a forceful reminder of the power of Africa’s place in history, corralling creativity that bound the past into the present, celebrating those who stood for social causes.

In a related vein, ART X Live! Curated by Lanre Masha and Ayo Lawson, it combined sound and visual arts on one platform, including legendary Nigerian Fuji artist Adewale Ayuba and experimental musician Cruel Santino. Their performance, led by the direction of Niyi Okeowo and production by Odunsi (The Engine), was an immersive combination of traditional sounds with modern beats to celebrate the evolution of Nigerian music.

This performance across generations shows Nigeria’s soundscape reflects the depth of its cultural roots and the innovation shaping its future.

Speakers’ Corner: The Crossroads by curator Papa Omotayo invites a space of dialogic reflection on the current state of Nigeria’s sociopolitical life. This is where viewers can contribute, sharing their vision for the future of Nigeria, thereby collapsing the distinction between observer and participant. This installation engages the spirit of collective hope, where diverse voices from different population strata add to a unified testimony of survival and movement.

This installation underlined the fair’s commitment to fostering meaningful conversations about social issues affecting Nigeria and, by extension, the continent.

Sustainability took centre in Marcellina Akpojotor’s Social Fabrics, Sustainable Threads collection that repurposed discarded fabrics to address environmental concerns. “With the transformation of waste material into intricate works of art, Akpojotor commented on consumer culture and the urgent appeal for sustainable practices.” Her works, made from recycled fabrics, implored viewers to reflect on how art could speak for change in a world where beauty and responsibility coexist.

This narrative of sustainability marries a new dimension to the fair, extending its artistic discourse into environmental themes.

The vibrancy of Afro-futurism emerged in Breaking Barriers by Williams Chechet, with bold and pop-art-inspired visuals envisioning African futures where the cultural narrative is reclaimed and redefined. Chechet’s artwork is a gestalt of vibrant colours and dynamic compositions, inviting viewers to imagine an Africa in control of its image on the global stage, a world uncompromisingly free from stereotypes. The work questions the status quo and celebrates the self-determination of African identity in deciding upon the continent’s fate.

Besides its installations, ART X Lagos 2024 continued its dedication to fostering emerging talent through the Access ART X Prize. Solo exhibitions showcased 2023 winners Julius Agbaje (Nigeria) and Shabu Mwangi (diaspora), whose art explored themes of displacement and belonging, aligning with the Promised Lands theme. Originally, Asmaa Jama was selected as a diaspora winner but later withdrew. Agbaje and Mwangi received a $10,000 production grant, a three-month residency at Gasworks, and project mentorship. The Alumni Impact Award was presented to Etinosa Yvonne, celebrating her ongoing social impact and connecting past winners. Applications for the 2024 prize have closed, with winners yet to be announced.

These exhibitions were a testament to ART X Lagos’s place and provided a platform for the next wave of African artists who will shape the continent’s artistic landscape in years to come.

The vibe of the fair spilt into film, too, where ART X Cinema, curated by Tega Okiti, presented a set of films that spoke to African identity, diaspora experiences, and the global influence of African culture. It was a deep dive into time and space via cinema that underlined that visual storytelling has remained one of the most enduring ways cultural narratives are conserved and continue to shift and change.

As the curtains drew on ART X Lagos 2024, it was a truism to say that this art fair did more than display art. It confirmed Lagos’s position as West Africa’s hub, where African and diaspora voices meet in delightful tension to challenge and inspire future design.

From groundbreaking visual arts to boundary-pushing performances, the fair incubated not only the depth of African creativity but also a space of critical engagement on issues that shape the continent. ART X Lagos remains a powerful testimony to West Africa’s creative renaissance. As the world shifts its gaze to African art, the fair offers a stage where tradition greets innovation and heritage interlinks with modernity, with Lagos proudly positioned as the epicentre for this dynamic evolution. As Africa’s creativity and thought leadership now wield more influence than ever, ART X Lagos is so much more than an art fair’s a cultural touchstone that keeps redefining what contemporary African art is.

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Ikenna Churchill

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