LagosPhoto Festival is pleased to present the ninth edition of the annual LagosPhoto Festival in Lagos, Nigeria, October 27th – November 15th, 2018 entitled Time Has Gone. In a month long programme, events include exhibitions, workshops, artist presentations, discus-sions, screening, and large scale outdoor installations in congested public spaces in Lagos.

“Time Has Gone,” is a frequently-used Nigerian idiom, which does not perfectly equate to the meaning an Anglo-Saxon reader would give it. The colloquialism refers to anything that is pressing. One would hear it in the bustling Lagosian streets, jumping in one of the infamous yellow cabs, in which passengers constantly berate their drivers, asking them to hurry because ‘‘Time has gone!’’ This phrase incorporates many aspects of what is moving art and citizens these days: a past that we need to accept, a present that constantly calls for immediate action, as well as the critical demand for decision and strategic measures for the future.

The 9th edition of LagosPhoto Festival, explores the configurations by which the past, the present and the future interact within the photographic medium. 25 Artists from around the globe have been invited to discuss, confront and wrestle with this idea of urgency. Each in their own way, they 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/or hidden phantoms. Looking at time both from a macro lens and with West African goggles, the curatorial team sheds light on the long way to go, from the then to the now, investigating diverse configurations of time in the least linear way possible.

Eva Barois De Caevel, Charlotte Langhorst, Wunika Mukan and Valentine Umansky, this year’s curators, have tried to generate a fluid female perspective and to highlight the diversity of approaches that the notion of time encompasses, while still reversing the usual demographics of the art world. Read the their curatorial statement here

PARTICIPATING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Malala Andrialavidrazana (Madagascar/France) Emmanuelle Andrianjafy (Madagascar) Ismaïl Bahri (Tunisia/France) Sandra Brewster (Canada/Guyana) Kwena Chokoe (South-Africa/Myanmar) CrazinisT (Ghana/Togo) Adji Dieye (Italy/ Senegal) Ndidi Dike (Nigeria) Michele Pearson Clarke (Canada/ Trinidad) Mary Evans (UK/Nigeria) Abosede George (Nigeria/US) Mathilde ter Heijne (Holland/ Germany) Amanda Iheme (Nigeria) Alfredo Jaar (Chile) Cassandra Klos (USA) Kitso Lynn Leliott (Botswana) Amina Menia (Algeria) Emo de Medeiros (Benin) Karl Ohiri (UK/Nigeria) Olu Olatunde (Nigeria) Chibuike Uzoma (Nigeria) Charlotte Yonga (France/Cameroon)

VENUES
LagosPhoto opens to the public on October 27th, 2018 at The Federal Printing Press Building on Lagos Island, Lagos. Satellite exhibition venues in arts and cultural spaces throughout the city extend to Omenka Gallery, Africans Artists’ Foundation, Gallery 16/16, Alliance Francaise, h.Factor and Railway (Yaba). Outdoor exhibitions in public spaces in Lagos include Ikorodu Park, Falomo Roundabout (Ikoyi) and Freedom Park.

Grand Opening. 27th October
Opening Week. 28th October -2nd November 2018

LAGOSPHOTO SPECIAL PROJECTS
Fast Forward : Women in Photography LagosPhoto, proudly supported by the British Council, launches the 5th Fast Forward mentorship workshop at LagosPhoto 2019. Fast Forward is an international research project concerned with women photographers based at University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, UK. The project is investigating the significance of ‘remembering not to forget’ the stories, both historical and contemporary, of women in photography across the globe. This first mentorship programme will focus on emerging women photographers from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal, Sierre Leone and the UK. The mentors for the programme will include academics and photographers working alongside international curators from Raw Material Company, Fast Forward, Tate Modern and Centre Pompidou.

Canon Photography Workshops
LagosPhoto, in partnership with Canon Central and North Africa offers capacity building workshops for aspiring photographers in Nigeria. Canon’s sustainability programme, Miraisha, is aimed at building the capacity and skills of people in photography, videography and printing, in the African countries in which we operate. One initiative of the Miraisha programme see’s Canon’s commitment to providing educational opportunities in communities across Africa.

National Geographic Portfolio Review
LagosPhoto, in partnership with Canon Central and North Africa offers capacity building The LagosPhoto Portfolio Review is a staple of the annual festival, where participating photographers are available to give advice and feedback to emerging photographers. Each portfolio is reviewed individually by leading practitioners in the field of photography. This year marks our second collaboration with National Geographic for the Portfolio Review, a continent wide open call will go out, with the winning portfolio being awarded $5,000.

The Market Photo Workshop Exhibition showcases the work of in partnership with the Market Photo Workshop, South Africa. Located in Newtown, Johannesburg, the Market Photo Workshop strives to create an environment where students learn, not only the technical and conceptual aspects of photography, but also ways of critical thinking integral to the understanding of contemporary photographic practice. Naija Gems, a travelling photography exhibition created by the US Consulate General showcasing intriguing images capturing Nigerian natural beauty Photography Incubator curated by Isabella Agbaje The Nest acoustic sessions at LagosPhoto 2018.

ASSOCIATED PROGRAMS

Workshop with Mary Evans
Mary Evans will lead a participatory workshop as she installs her work on-site. Visitors and participants will be able to attend and discuss the process of creating the large, paper fresco, which will be installed by Evans at the Printing Press.

Conference about Archives, Time and Preservation – Abosede George
Professor Abosede George, from Barnard College, Columbia University, will moderate and lead a conversation about the specificity of archives and time, with several guest speakers. Together, they will discuss the following questions: what is the language of the archive? What are the politics of translation involved in converting history into archival record? What are the specificity of archiving sound or images on the African continent?

www.lagosphotofestival.com