Art Dubai’s Marker programme explores the nature of evolving cities in West Africa through the work of upcoming and established artists, exhibiting in the Middle East for the first time.

Marker is a curated section of concept stands, located within the gallery halls at Madinat Jumeirah, which focuses each year on a particular theme or geography.? For 2013, Art Dubai has invited Lagos-based curator Bisi Silva to select and work with galleries and art spaces located in West Africa. Silva’s programme is curated around the theme of ‘cities in transition’, with a particular focus on the work of dynamic, independent organisations and artists dealing with specific identities and localities. Her concept focuses on the rapidly evolving nature of cities in West Africa and the way in which this change impacts society.

Silva has selected five spaces to work collaboratively with their artists to produce exhibitions for Art Dubai: Centre for Contemporary Art (Lagos, Nigeria); Espace doual’art (Douala, Cameroon); Maison Carpe Diem (Segou, Mali); Nubuke Foundation (Accra, Ghana); and Raw Material Company (Dakar, Senegal). Working together with the curator and the fair, each artspace will present recent works by artists such as Soly Cisse (Senegal) Ablade Glover (Ghana), Abdoulaye Konate (Mali) Boris Nzebo (Cameroun) and Taiye Idahor (Nigeria). The Centre For Contemporary Art Lagos is represented by the works of six artists, Ndidi Dike, Ade Adekola, Charles Okereke, Taiye Idahor, Emeka Ogboh and Karo Akpokiere.

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