In the Lagos of mid-November, as Nigeria's art week gathers around West Africa's largest art fair, artists and curators are asking an old human question: how a people carries its past into the present. At the Federal Palace Hotel, works that trace the slave trade's ghosts into today's migrations, honour a potter whose vessels rose from a village near Abuja to the world's museums, and hold open the wound of the Chibok abductions reveal a city that remembers as much as it trades. The fair, now in its eleventh year, offers visitors a place to meet the weight of inheritance and, perhaps, to imagin
Lagos Art Week Uses Art to Confront Slavery, Migration and Memory at ART X Lagos
A documentary follows Chibok parents still grieving daughters abducted in 2014 by Boko Haram; Amnesty reported 82 girls still in captivity as of April 2024.
Sand and waves from Badagry, carried into a Lagos hotel hall
Mark
Why does a canoe and some sand from Badagry matter so much in this story?
Mimi
Because Dike uses real material from a place that was a transit point for enslaved West Africans. The sand and the sound of waves both come from there, so the work is tied to an actual shore.
Mark
And she connects that to people leaving today.
Mimi
Yes. She sees a correlation between slavery and young Africans crossing the Sahara and the Mediterranean, where some die and others are trafficked.
Luke
That's her reading, though. The article presents it as the artist's view, not a finding. It doesn't offer data on the migrants she means.
Mark
Fair. What about Ladi Kwali? Why include a potter in a fair about confronting history?
Mimi
The curator, Jareh Das, ties it to heritage being hard to document in Nigeria. Kwali's pots, and her face on the currency, make that legacy visible.
Mark
Then there's the Chibok film.
Mimi
Joel Benson's documentary follows parents still grieving. Amnesty said in April 2024 that 82 girls remained in captivity.
Luke
Note the date. That's the figure as of April 2024, and the article gives nothing newer, so we can't say what the number is now.
Mark
Anything else we don't know?
Luke
Attendance is only described as thousands. The 750 schoolchildren is the only firm count, and it comes from the fair's own programme.
The Pulse
- Thousands crowd fifteen partitioned exhibition halls at the Federal Palace Hotel, pressing through a fair that turns Victoria Island into a stage for memory.
- A canoe hangs above sand carried from Badagry, a former slave-trading port, while crashing waves and silhouetted figures force visitors to confront the link between past captivity and today's dangerous crossings toward Europe.
- Curators and organisers race to pass heritage to younger generations, welcoming more than 750 schoolchildren into a programme that may be their first encounter with contemporary art.
- The fair's most painful work, a documentary on Chibok mothers still waiting for daughters taken in 2014, presses a stubborn question: when will empathy become policy, with 82 girls still missing?
In the Lagos of mid-November, as Nigeria's art week gathers around West Africa's largest art fair, artists and curators are asking an old human question: how a people carries its past into the present. At the Federal Palace Hotel, works that trace the slave trade's ghosts into today's migrations, honour a potter whose vessels rose from a village near Abuja to the world's museums, and hold open the wound of the Chibok abductions reveal a city that remembers as much as it trades. The fair, now in its eleventh year, offers visitors a place to meet the weight of inheritance and, perhaps, to imagine what comes after it.
On the third day of ART X Lagos, a woman in a red dress stops in a hallway before a large painting and steps inside the booth to look closer. Around her, visitors move among fifteen exhibition spaces, and thousands have come to see, meet and buy. The fair, which ran from November 5 to 8 at the Federal Palace Hotel, anchors Nigeria's annual art week, with galleries and museums across the city adding their own shows. Together they explore cultural erosion, migration, belonging and the ways art keeps collective memory alive, while revealing a Lagos that is more than commerce and traffic.
Sculptor Ndidi Dike's installation Residues of Past Encounters II floats a wooden canoe above a glass surface, ringed with sand and the sound of waves, all drawn from Badagry, once a notorious transit point for enslaved Africans. Above it hangs Adire fabric printed with tightly packed silhouettes. Dike sees a line running from that history to today, when young Africans still risk the Sahara and the Mediterranean, and some do not survive. The fair's theme, 'A New Chapter, A New Decade', honours the generation that shaped Nigerian modernism, and an exhibition on potter Ladi Kwali shows how a village craft became international art. Curator Jareh Das hopes her legacy will inspire young artists in a country where heritage is hard to preserve.
Visitors bring their own stories. Adeniyi Adewole's fibreglass sculpture traces his struggle with depression and his slow move toward peace, while Mercy Imiegha's group show explores how homes and bodies hold memory. The heaviest work is Joel Benson's documentary Mothers of Chibok, which follows parents still grieving the 276 schoolgirls taken in 2014, with 82 still held as of April 2024. Benson hopes audiences and authorities will move from empathy to action. As dusk falls, the fair fills with people in bold dress, browsing books and gathering under umbrellas, and organiser Tokini Peterside hopes they leave still asking questions about the histories they met there.
On the third day of ART X Lagos, a woman in a red dress walks down a hallway, turns to take in the room, and is stopped by a large painting. She steps into the booth for a closer look. Around her, visitors drift between 15 partitioned exhibition spaces, studying the works. Thousands have come to see, meet people and buy art from across the world.
The fair, West Africa's largest and most prominent, ran from November 5 to 8 at the Federal Palace Hotel on Victoria Island. It is the centrepiece of Nigeria's annual art week, with exhibitions, installations, music, discussions and film screenings, while galleries and museums elsewhere in Lagos host their own shows. Taken together, the programme looks at cultural erosion, migration and belonging, and at how art can hold collective memory. It also shows a side of Lagos beyond its reputation for commerce, traffic and hustle.
Among the exhibitors is sculptor and multidisciplinary artist Ndidi Dike. Her installation, Residues of Past Encounters II, hangs a wooden canoe above a glass surface, with sand around its edges. Above it is Adire-style fabric, associated with Yoruba women of southwest Nigeria, printed with silhouettes of tightly packed people. Waves crash softly in the background. Both the sand and the sound came from Badagry, the Atlantic coastal town that was once a notorious transit point for enslaved West Africans. The reflective surface beneath the canoe stands for absence, remembrance and the passage of time.
Dike links the work to the present. Centuries after the transatlantic slave trade, many young Africans still risk journeys across the Sahara and the Mediterranean toward Europe; some die, and others are exploited or trafficked. "I find that there is a correlation between slavery and what is happening now," she told Al Jazeera, adding that it is always the best of the demographic who are taken or choose to go abroad.
Now in its 11th edition, the fair carries the theme 'A New Chapter, A New Decade', drawing on the generation of Nigerian artists, architects, educators and thinkers who shaped the country's modernism. Founder Tokini Peterside said that generation showed innovation does not require abandoning inheritance. One of the figures honoured is the potter Ladi Kwali, in an exhibition called Beyond the Vessel. Beside a large photograph of her at work are pots decorated with scorpions, lizards, butterflies and intricate patterns. Kwali came from a line of Gbari women potters in the village of Kwali, near Abuja, and rose from local recognition to international acclaim; museums and galleries worldwide have shown and collected her work, and her portrait has appeared on Nigerian currency. Curator Jareh Das said preserving her legacy would inspire young artists, in a country where documenting and maintaining heritage can be difficult.
Visitors brought their own reactions. Barbara Barungi, dressed in Adire, found a painting made with coffee by Daniel Atenyi at Afriart Gallery, a Kampala-based space showing Ugandan art. She called the fair a safe place to relax and forget the bustle outside, and joked that it is Nigeria's 'Met Gala'. The fair also ran an education programme that welcomed more than 750 schoolchildren. Peterside said that for many of them it may be a first encounter with contemporary art.
Personal histories sit alongside the historical ones. Adeniyi Adewole's fibreglass sculpture Breath Beneath the Waters reflects his struggle with depression, which kept him indoors and unable to work for a time; he describes the piece as a move from a blue period to peace. Elsewhere, Mercy Imiegha's group show Every House Remembers gathers four artists exploring how bodies, objects and domestic spaces preserve memory and spiritual identity, and the Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, a Nigerian-founded residency programme, is organising a citywide art tour.
The heaviest work is Joel Benson's documentary Mothers of Chibok. It follows three parents and a woman who was abducted and later freed in Boko Haram's 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from their dormitory. Amnesty International reported in April 2024 that 82 girls remained in captivity. Benson said telling the story matters because it is more convenient to forget. He says the parents have carried on through laughter, pain, tears and faith, and he hopes audiences and authorities will move beyond empathy toward action on policy and security.
As dusk fell, more visitors arrived in bold Afrocentric dress, browsing art books in the library or gathering under umbrellas in the cafe. Peterside said she hopes people leave wanting to keep exploring the histories and ideas they met there.
Notable Quotes
I find that there is a correlation between slavery and what is happening now.— Ndidi Dike, artist
It is important to tell this type of story because it is more convenient to forget and just move on.— Joel Benson, documentary filmmaker
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