CCA,Lagos end of year activities

We present our final programmes for what has been an exciting 2009. Please join us as we continue to interact, dialogue and exchange ideas and opinions about contemporary art and culture.

1. CCA,Lagos is proud to be the first African contemporary art venue to host the full version of the Old News Project conceived and developed by Danish curator Jacob Fabricius. Please Join CCA,Lagos in hosting curator and director of Malmo Konsthall, Jacob Fabricius, internationally renowned Danish conceptual artist Jens Haaning and the 31 participating Nigerian artists on the 5th of December for the reception of the exhibition Old News #1, #2,#3, #4,#5 solo by Jens Haaning and #6 Lagos-Malmo featuring 62 artist based in Lagos and Malmo

Time 3pm

2. Monday 7th Dec. Talk Programme
Jacob Fabricius will talk about his independent curatorial practice including highlighting the premise for the Old News Project as well as talk about his role as the director of one of Sweden's key art institution Malmo Konsthall.
Jens Haaning will talk about the conceptual and contextual strategies that inform his artistic practice and his experience of of exhibiting around the world.

Time 3.30pm

3. CCA,LAGOS IS TWO YEARS OLD. Tuesday 8th December 2009
We take great pride in inviting you on this special day to join us as we celebrate our 2nd anniversary and to the final programme of Art-iculate with a keynote lecture by an inspirational and internationally renowned photographer Shahidul Alam, managing director of Drik Photo Agency, one of the most important photography organisations in the Asian Region. Mr Alam's visit is all the more auspicious as it launches our 2010 focus on Photography with the ambitious and innovative fine art photography workshop under the title of On Independence and The Ambivalence of Promise.

A photographer, writer, curator and activist, Shahidul Alam obtained a PhD in chemistry at London University before switching to photography. He returned to his hometown Dhaka in 1984, where he photographed the democratic struggle to remove General Ershad. A former president of the Bangladesh Photographic Society, Alam set up the award winning Drik agency, the Bangladesh Photographic Institute and Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography, considered one of the finest schools of photography in the world.

Time 3pm


WE WELCOME YOU TO OUR WORLD

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos
9 McEwen Street, Sabo, Lagos Mon- Fri 10am - 6pm

2010 Fine Art Photography Workshop at CCA,Lagos

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos in fulfillment of its objectives, has over the past 23months presented an innovative programme of exhibitions, talks, seminars, workshops and events reaching out to a local, African and global audience. We are pleased to present the 2010 programme, On Independence and The Ambivalence of Promise.

We start this landmark year for Nigeria and the African continent with an ambitious and innovative Fine Art Photography workshop focusing not so much on technique but on methodology, critical thinking, conceptual ideas and their implementation.

On independence – The Ambivalence of Promise celebrates in 2010, the 50th anniversary of independence from colonial rule of 17 African countries. The intellectual underpinning of the project questions the narrow framework of postcolonial critical thinking and ideas and considers dreams, realities and possibilities for (full/total) independence that have engaged people and communitites across languages, cultures and regions focusing on the concerns of gender, religion, nation buiding processes and aesthetics in theory and art. Working through guilt, self-analysis and rethinking the artificial correlation between nation states, the project suggests a new in depth approach reflecting on social concerns and questioning ones relationship to the larger totality.

This project is open to artists in Nigeria and around Africa working in all media - painting, sculpture, textile, ceramics, photography, video and new media, performance art, writing, theatre and dance. The workshop will be an intensive 30 day programme facilitated by experienced local and international artists, critics, curators starting on the 8th of February till 6th of March 2010

The content of the programme will be based on several components such as:

• Explore themes around Independence and the Post-Colony
• Discover methodologies and strategies for the development of your artistic practice
• 1-on-1 artist portfolio reviews of your work with leading local and international artists and curators
• Develop your critical thinking skills and explore ways of implementing them in your practice
• Engage with the history of photography and its conceptual dimensions
• Work will be featured in the final exhibition and publication

Workshop facilitators and guests speakers include leading professionals in their field: Phillipe Pirotte (Belgium/Switzerland) Heta Kuchka (Finland), Giovanni Carmini (Switzerland), Simon Njami (Cameroon),Tam Fiofori (Nigeria),Daniella Wennberg (Norway), Miriam Backstrom (Sweden),Jide Adeniyi Jones (Nigeria), Rosangela Renno (Brazil), Senam Okudzeto (Ghana), Mats Stjernstedt (Sweden), Carrie Schneider (USA), Elina Brotherus (Finland), Akinbode Akinbiyi (Nig/Ger)

Project Conceived and developed by curators Aura Seikkula (Finland) and Bisi Silva (Nigeria)

For additional information please contact Project Co-ordinatorAntawan Byrd E: antawan@ccalagos.org

P.A.G.E.S @ CCA,Lagos presents Authors Teju Cole & Jumoke Verissimo

P.A.G.E.S and CCA,Lagos continue their innovative programme of bringing the Visual and Literary Arts into dialogue. We proudly present after the initial groundbreaking collaboration with Jude Dibia during Like A Virgin... the 2nd with Onyeka Nwelue during The World is Flat, 3rd with Toni Kan during Trash-ing, the fourth event with a double portion presenting Teju Cole and Jumoke Verissimo during Identity:An Imagined State.


TEJU COLE & JUMOKE VERISSIMO WITH 12 VIDEO ARTISTS EXHIBITING @ CCA,LAGOS SAT 21ST NOV 2PM

This Saturday is going to be an interesting one, relaxing, interacting and full of fun @ the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos as Teju Cole the author of Everyday is for the Thief - a fiction novel on Lagos, and Jumoke Verissimo, the author I am Memory - a poetry collection engage 12 artists in a video art exhibition at CCA,Lagos

This is equally an opportunity of getting your copy of either Everyday is for Thief or I am Memory signed by the authors.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE EXHIBITION SATURDAY 21ST NOVEMBER 2PM IS THE DAY

31st October - 28th November 2009
Identity:An Imagined State
A video art exhibition featuring the works
of Nigerian,African & South American artists.
Curated by Jude Anogwih and Oyinda Fakeye
Gallery Opening Mon-Fri 12pm - 4pm
Sat by Appointment. Call 07028367106

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos
9 McEwen Street, Sabo, Lagos
Library Opening Mon- Fri 10am - 6pm

A Picture of Africa? Antawan Byrd reviews the 9th Bamako Encounters

vibrant and cosmopolitan, the city of Bamako, situated on the Niger River, doesn’t have much of an art scene. But that hasn’t stopped it from emerging as one of the most important stops on the global biennial circuit for exploring contemporary photography.

The eighth edition of the event, newly retitled “Bamako Encounters African Photography Biennial,” takes on the theme of “Borders” as its focal point. Borders in every sense imaginable, that is.

Acknowledging the discursive dimensions — or possibilities — of the concept, creative directors Michket Krifat and Laura Serani cast a wide net in organizing the biennial; the results, dispersed throughout various venues in Mali’s capital, explore how borders — social, political, economic — remain quite visible in Africa despite efforts to restructure and reconceptualize them. Read More at artinfo.com

Nigerian artists hit the road to Bamako.

culled from the blogsite
http://lagos-bamako.blogspot.com/

INVISIBLE BORDERS 2009

Inspired by the 8th edition of the Bamako Photography Encounters 2009, 10 Nigerians made up of photographers and writers decided to make a road trip to Bamako from Lagos: in a black Volks Wagen Mini bus rented from Photo Garage in Lagos. This project arose as a result of an urgent need to address the notion of dividing borders between countries in the African continent. It might sound paradoxical that while travelling by air might seem a lot faster and much more stress-free, it indeed suggests a feeling of immense “distance” between places, given that one might call the singular borders suggested by the airport terminals as “virtual”, not tangible, providing a rather fictitious notion of displacement in real time; more so due to the absence of land scapes and other elements which serves as visual testimony to distance covered. Therefore this project is an attempt to acquire a much realistic sense of the similarities and difference between peoples suggested by cultural and geographical lines.

The project has been termed “Invisible Borders”: a reference to the non-geographical demarcation, but rather that which could be easily missed especially if looking at the lines in the map, or flying over by air.

The most essential aspect of the project is not the final destination, but the journey; therefore the participating photographers will produce works in form of photography and video while on the go which will be exhibited during the main events of the Festival in Bamako.

Participants include:

Uche James Iroha, Lucy Azubuike, Emeka Okereke, Amaize Ojiekere, Uche Okpa Iroha, Ray Daniels Okeugo, Unoma Geise, Chris Nwobu, Nike Ojeikere, Charles Okereke.

Dates scheduled for Travel are as followed:

3rd of November: Participants leave Lagos,

6th of November: Participant arrive in Bamako

15th of November: Participants leave Bamako

18th of November: Participants arrive in Lagos.

Borders Involved:

Nigeria/Benin (Seme), Benin/Togo (Grand Popo), Togo/Ghana (Aflao), Ghana /Burkina fasso (Paga), Burkina Fasso/ Mali.