The 2016 edition of the LagosPhoto Festival opened to the public at 6pm on October 22 at the Escalator Exhibition Hall, Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.
The festival aims to provide a platform for the development and education of contemporary photography in Africa. Previous editions have featured exhibitions, workshops, presentations, screenings and outdoor installations at the most congested public spaces in Lagos.
This year’s theme aims to explore the repetition of behaviours and thoughts, as well as how these concepts interact to influence gender, image, identity, social agency, power and social constructs within modern society. It is believed that this repetition forms rituals and that it is these rituals that determine our individual perceptions of the African image, gender, religion, and beauty. The act of documenting these rituals and engraving them in film becomes performance.
The festival spans 17 countries in Africa and features 30 photographers such as Gideon Mendel with Drowning World; TY Bello with Emmanuel; Lakin Ogunbanwo with Ekaro Daddy; Mario Macilau with Profit Corner; Kudzanai Chiurai with Men of Livingstone; and Jenevieve Aken with Great Expectations. Here, the artists through their work promote the notion that contemporary visual representations of African life directly affect the cultural meanings associated with the image’s construction and subsequent interpretation. The photographer or the image become the demiurge and provide the public with a sense that we are holding the world in our heads. The festival runs till November 21, 2016.
