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...

Lagos Biennale, this way please Ebutte Metta, Apapa road, Saturday afternoon, 2PM. Residents go about their business as usual. Road-side shops are waiting for their customers, mamas sell fish, tomatoes, pepper, and so on. An empty bus breaks down in front of us. Its driver attempts to push it by himself but to no avail. None of the walkers-by offer assistance, actually they have got their own business to mind and the sight of a bus breaking down is nothing extraordinary. Considering that we are standing and not about to move, my driver decides to go and help push the vehicle on the side of the road. We are now able to restart our progression and we turn into the road leading to the railway compound which is closed by a large two-way gate. Vehicles have to alternate through one of the lane for security reason. The railway compound is a residential area abundantly provided with buildings that used to serve the railway industry back in the days. A firemen place, the headquarters of t...