Lagos Art Week Explores History, Migration and Belonging

ART X Lagos, described as West Africa's largest art fair and the centrepiece of Nigeria's annual art week, took place in Lagos from November 5 to 8. The programme at the Federal Palace Hotel on Victoria Island included exhibitions, installations, music, discussions and film screenings, while galleries and museums elsewhere in the city also hosted shows. Together they examine cultural erosion, migration and belonging, and how art can preserve collective memory and reconnect people with their heritage.

The past in the present

Among the exhibitors is Ndidi Dike, a contemporary sculptor and multidisciplinary artist. Her installation, Residues of Past Encounters II, features a wooden canoe suspended above a glass surface, with sand around its edges and, overhead, fabric in the Adire style of Yoruba women bearing silhouettes of tightly packed people. A soundtrack of crashing waves evokes the coast at Badagry, a historic town that was once a transit point for enslaved West Africans; the sand and sound came from there. The work links the transatlantic slave trade with present-day migration, as many young Africans still make dangerous journeys to Europe across the Sahara and the Mediterranean.

A new chapter

Now in its 11th edition, the fair carries the theme "A New Chapter, A New Decade", inspired by the Nigerian artists, architects and educators who shaped the country's modernism. Founder Tokini Peterside said histories are living sources of knowledge that can inform what is created next.

The exhibition Beyond the Vessel honours Ladi Kwali, a potter from a line of Gbari women potters near Abuja. Her work has been shown and collected by museums and galleries worldwide, and her portrait has appeared on Nigerian currency. Curator Jareh Das said preserving her legacy would inspire young artists.

New generation and memory

The fair's educational programme welcomed more than 750 schoolchildren. Artist Adeniyi Adewole's fibreglass sculpture reflects his struggle with depression. Joel Benson's documentary Mothers of Chibok follows families affected by Boko Haram's 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok; Amnesty International reported in April 2024 that 82 girls remained in captivity.