In Motion, my first solo exhibition in Lagos

rain dance 1, Oyo town, 2016, Edouard Blondeau

Three years ago, as I first came to Lagos, this blog started with the question "walking or not walking?" (on the streets of Lagos). Since then, every single day has been a new step of appropriation of the space. This process of familiarisation has been documented with photography and texts throughout this blog. I have also more recently decided to materialise this quest into a more artistic venture, namely an art exhibition called "In Motion", at 16/16 a hip space in Victoria Island. 16/16, led by Tushar Hathiramani, is a place where an ecclectic mix of people gathers around drinks or thai food during art exhibitions and performances. It is located in a flat traversed by light on the 8th floor of 16 Kofo-Abayomi street with a superbe view on the lagoon.
I approached Tushar with some of my works created over a lapse of 3 years and it transpired from it that the concept of movement was a recurring pattern. This led to the development of the concept of the exhibition which happened on March 9th-18th, 2018.

In Motion is about movement in time and movement in space

Movement in Space is explored through dance. I travelled severally in the Yoruba heartland and came, unprepared, across acts of dancing. This happened in different locations: first in the beautiful and captivating sacred Groves in Osogbo, then in a private house in Oyo and finally looking for shelter, in the palace of the Alaafin in Oyo, during a storm that turns the ground into a river.
The harmony of dancing, these ancestral moves transmitted from generation to generation, transcended the space into which the action was taking place. Difficult lighting conditions made long exposures a requirement to capture these scenes, hence the occasional motion blur which helped bring out the furtive essence of movement. Blur also brings out the essence of action by abstracting the background into a neutral and dreamy representation. The use of black and white was deliberate to focus attention on the performers of the dance.

Spinning, 2016, Edouard Blondeau

Movement in time came as a deeper investigation of movement capture. By extension, the blur is replaced by a juxtaposition of samples of an action on a two dimensional surface. The background of each samples has been removed to focus on the subject of the action performed. This is what we see in the Actionoscopes. On those the mind is free to reconstruct what has been deconstructed to create its own narrative. It is like putting several pieces of a puzzle together. For this series I chose to use material from the beach, except for the calabash fishing piece which took place on Kaduna river. I must say I was seduced by the flamboyance and glamour of people on the beach, watching it was like following a series of eye-catching elements of ordinary people's recreational moments. Snippets of moments that I synthesized in the actionoscopes.
More recently I have explored layering the background with African prints to convey the energy of colours that people wear into particular scenes such as Taking the ram by the horns.

Taking the ram by the horns, 2018, Edouard Blondeau

All copyright reserved by Edouard Blondeau

The Ogiamien family in Benin City: about wood and history

Roland Ogiamien in his wood-carving workshop Wood Roland Ogiamien is a renown wood carver. He is now retired in his home town of Benin City and is now in his 80s. We met him in his simple workshop, a barn opened on the surrounding greenery. A part of the studio is used to store wood pieces and make sure they are well dried. He is using a collection of german ustensils to carve and polish the wood. He spent most of his career working out of Lagos before relocating to Benin. Roland was explaining that the wood he uses today is different that the one he worked on in his early days. Ebony has become rare and wood carvers have had to switch to other types of wood. Traditional heritage is a large part of his inspiration which he translates on wood with his own particular style, exploring various techniques for the finish of his pieces. Roland Ogiamien and two of his favourite masks History Ogiamien is the name of an important royal family in Benin Kingdom. Towards the end of the

no hawkers allowed on kingsway

no hawking Sign of hawkers this was my discovery of the week in the urban signage section. I had to think hard what the "damaged hat" was all about? Until I saw a couple of people walking with large flat baskets on their heads loaded with small portions of peanuts wrapped-up in plastic bags right by the signage. I then understood that they were not supposed to be there if the signage is of any relevance. Exactly why is another matter. Perhaps for safety reasons as in the past people hijacking cars could have been mistaken with the hawkers selling wares in the traffic. Today Kingsway, the large avenue crossing Ikoyi and coming straight out of Victoria Island through the Falomo bridge, is fairly safe. Its 2*2 lanes are often packed with slow traffic and therefore a good place for hawkers to do business. Youth's future on Kingsway Two billboards attracted my attention along Alfred Rewane avenue (the new name for Kingsway). One was a representation of a young a

The mysterious stones images of Esie

turned into Stones Chief J. Agbo Ooye had been waiting in the shade of a large tree, in front of the National Museum of Esie, dressed in ceremonial costume with a velvet hat incrusted with crystal beads sown in the shape of his title and his name. He was sitting next to his wife on a bench, expecting our arrival. His wife, he would tell us later, was his best friend and she was actually demonstrating it by guiding his frail body from one place to another and guiding his hand when it came to sign autographs of his books. Chief Agbo Ooye is the author of two booklets on the Esie Stones. The first one, called A Personal Account of the Esie Stones is giving an overview of the differences between the scientific and the traditional interpretation of the Esie Stones. The second one is called the History of Esie and gives a brief account of Esie's history from the early settlement of Yorubas in various groups (Esie, Oro, Eku Apa, Igbonla, Edidi, Igbesi, etc...) to the present day. Thos

Nigeria, the land of plenty

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