The artists are attuned to the query: How do you {photograph} one thing that gained’t keep nonetheless? Their photos seize Lagos in fixed flux, the place the hustle and energy of thousands and thousands of individuals attempting to eke out an existence thwart any need for stillness or contemplation. Town as an ever-hungry beast; indefatigable.
A number of pictures carry a sociological impulse. For instance, Iheme’s picture of Makoko, a floating settlement throughout the Third Mainland Bridge constructed on stilts inside Lagos Lagoon. Emezie’s photos of the 2020 EndSARS protests are notable as a result of she refuses to obey the separation of photographer from topic – she is on the streets, rejecting the passivity of commentary. Photography itself turns into a type of protest.
These works additionally counsel that it isn’t sufficient to visualise Lagos; town can’t be held in a neat body. The place have to be felt too, its sensory overload reckoned with: from the honking horns, the rising smoke, the brash name of strangers, males arguing, somebody stealing meals to the sound of cash exchanging arms. All are transmuted of their rapturous depth on this cautious choice.
New Photography 2023 delineates the myriad strategies artists use to seize town, from the layering of archival pictures to create composite photos, to photos that take us into Lagos’ deserted and uncared for areas. Photographs play a key position within the building of town – maintaining its myths alive. To those artists, pictures isn’t merely a recording of our environment, it’s the means via which fragmented experiences are introduced to gentle for collective understanding.
