The fifth anniversary of the
festival, LagosPhoto spills into 2015 with the theme "The Year of
Photography," a year-round programme of exhibitions and workshops in
Lagos. The festival's expansion from its month-long annual presentation, aims
to evolve into a comprehensive and permanent educational platform.
Last year, LagosPhoto presented a ten-month
initiative leading up to the sixth edition of LagosPhoto set to hold in October
2015, with programmes including series of exhibitions highlighting new works of
participating artists, a group thematic exhibition that explores the
relationship between photography and design, residencies for international
artists to produce new photographic work in Lagos, and workshops, talks and
extended mentorship for emerging photographers.
The Year of Photography, as promised by Lagos Photo, to allow renowned
international and local photographers interact with new audiences in the
country, brought about the initiation of the first edition of the
PhotoJunctions, which debuted in Abuja, Recently.
PhotoJunctions, in a week-long
event/exhibition, was organised by the embassies of France, Germany, Spain and
The Netherlands, the Thought Pyramid Art Centre and in partnership with
LagosPhoto Festival.
Two artist talks based on the topic
“The Journey” was also a feature of the week-long event which involved Nigerian
photographers Aisha Augie-Kuta and Tom Saater, who share explicitly, their
experiences and struggles through their 'journey' into professional
photography.
Most interesting, however, was Tom
Saater's story, which depicted rare details of information on his struggle
without a degree, but through passionate and relentless efforts, got two contracts
with an international news agency, while still homeless, sleeping at a post
office and without a camera. Tom was in London a day after the PhotoJunctions
Artist Talk by invitation from Oxford University to share with students of the
prestigious educational institution.
According to Wunika Mukan, Director at the
African Artists' Foundation (AAF), organisers of the Lagos Photo Festival,
"The aim of the initiative is to promote international photography in
Abuja and to provide local photographers with an opportunity to exchange their
visions and photographs also with foreign photographers."
Three facilitators from France, Spain
and The Netherlands, namely William Daniels, Lurdes Basolí and Hans Wilschut,
were in Abuja to give workshops to photo artists and specialist who had
attended from Lagos and Abuja.
The facilitators led the photography
participants through analyses of creative works and experiences of other
professional photographers and icons, the works of the participants and
themselves in an enriching interactive process which led, eventually, to the
formation of a group of creative photographers and photo journalists called the
Abuja Photosynthesis.
Highlights of the PhotoJunctions
Workshop includes an exhibition of works from the previous year of the Lagos
Photo Festival, Artist talks With Aisha Augie-Kuta and Tom Saater, the
PhotoJunctions Workshop; featuring a week-long interactive and an exhibition of
photos of the participants with works from an outing initiated to facilitate an
output process of knowledge acquired from the workshop and the formation of the
intercultural and intercontinental group of Photo Artists, Photographers and
Photo Journalists, Abuja Photosynthesis.
No comments:
Post a Comment