The curators for the 2019 edition of the Lagos Biennial will be Antawan I. Byrd, Tosin Oshinowo and Oyinda Fakeye. For the forthcoming edition, the three curators will collaboratively devise the biennial’s curatorial framework encompassing exhibitions, performances, publishing projects, and public programmes.

The title for the second edition of the Lagos Biennial will be How to Build a Lagoon with Just a Bottle of Wine? The title is adapted from the poem, “A Song For Lagos” by the Nigerian writer Akeem Lasisi. During the kick-off event, the curators framed the title as a provocation for artists and the public to meditate on the history and present makeup of city’s built environment. For the curators, the title conjures the impossible or herculean, which speaks to the city’s “can-do” spirit in the face of seemingly insurmountable social, political, and economic obstacles just as it alludes the nascent state of the biennial itself as a platform. (Find out more about the curators and the title here)

How To Build a Lagoon with Just a Bottle of Wine? will take the city of Lagos as its epicenter and point of departure for a broader investigation on how contemporary artists, designers, and other creatives, are responding to the challenges and possibilities of environments today. Inspired by lines from Nigerian writer Akeem Lasisi’s poem “A Song For Lagos,” the biennial’s title calls to mind the lagoons and waterways, that founded the city;  the centuries-long histories of trade that have transformed Lagos; and daily herculean and inconceivable activities that support our burgeoning metropolis.

The second edition of the biennial will open up conversations and invite reflection on environments across group and solo exhibitions, installations, and public programmes.

More information coming soon!!

lagos-biennial.org