Nigeria, the land of plenty

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 t

so many roads lead to Abuja Coming from Lagos, Abuja throws one in disarray. Is this Nigeria, the chaotic and busy Nigeria we Lagosians are familiar with? What has  caused all of the Central Business District (CBD) to be practically free of pedestrians? However concrete has been spent without restraint and asphalt too. Massive infrastructures seem oversized, perhaps as a result of the ambitious dream of a nascent nation.  The wide roads might carry traffic on all lanes at peak time, but the whole affair rhymes more with policed traffic on a US highway than what would be considered peak time traffic anywhere else in Nigeria. Abuja is visibly the youngest born of the Nigerian Nation, concretely sterile, unfinished and yet fast-spreading. Built in the 1980s, it became the capital of Nigeria officially in 1991 and is the centre of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). millenium promise under construction Abuja is a city of architecture. All government buildings, from federal state