2nd Feb - 7th Feb 2024
We are delighted to open bookings for the Guest Artists Space Foundation Lagos Biennial Trip. The trip programme is scheduled to run from the 2nd of February until the 7th of February 2024. Guests intending to participate are advised to plan their arrival in Lagos on the afternoon of Friday, the 2nd of February, and schedule their departure for the evening of the 7th of February. The organised trip events will unfold between the 3rd of February and the morning of the 7th of February.
The itinerary has been curated to encompass the official Lagos Biennial programme, coupled with a tour of G.A.S. Lagos, artist studio and gallery visits. G.A.S. stands as one of the official partners of the Biennial and has hosted several participating artists in residence over the preceding 12 months, including Evan Ifekoya, Nolan Oswald Dennis, and Raymond Pinto. The latter two will be returning to G.A.S. Lagos in January, affording our guests a unique opportunity to engage with them during the trip.
The trip promises to be a culturally rich experience and will be delivered by the G.A.S. and Yinka Shonibare Foundation teams. Our cohort will include curators, arts professionals, cultural stakeholders and artists.
Please note that places are limited and bookings for this trip close on Friday 5th January 2024.
GUEST GUIDANCE
- To secure their place on the G.A.S. Lagos Biennial Trip guests must complete our booking form along with the payment process no later than the 5th January 2024.
- The package cost for this trip covers airport concierge services, trip coordination and management, a visa on arrival, security escorts, and group transportation.
- We encourage guests to book flights as early as possible to take advantage of favourable rates. We will not be able to process your visa without proof of flight booking. Arrivals should be scheduled for the afternoon of 2nd February and departures for the afternoon of the 7th February.
- Recommended hotel information with a discount code will be sent to all guests upon completion of their trip booking. Guests are responsible for reserving their hotel room.
- Our Guest Information Form will be shared within two weeks of completing the trip booking. Guests will need to provide flight, insurance, and passport information to allow our team to make provisions for visas, airport concierge services, and airport transfers.
- Our Trip Information Pack will be shared within two weeks of completing the trip booking and will include an itinerary overview, health advice, travel guidance, and details about the local environment.
ABOUT THE FOURTH EDITION OF THE LAGOS BIENNIAL
The 2024 edition of the Lagos Biennial takes place in the heart of Lagos on the grounds of Tafawa Balewa Square, a site named in honour of the first Nigerian Prime Minister. The Biennial occupies this historical space, linked to entertainment in the colonial period as a racecourse and to political, cultural and commercial events after Independence, in order to reflect on its possible meanings in relation to political allegiance, territory, sovereignty, regionality, notions of belonging, encounter, and alliance. It moves the cursor away from a history of ‘universal’ exhibitions and biennials towards experiments in non-conventional modes of exhibition making, shifting from the idea of the work as an end in itself towards generative models and prototypes that continue to activate possibilities in the world.
Themed REFUGE, Lagos Biennial 2024 addresses the concept of the nation-state and critically reflects on the site of the main exhibition, Tafawa Balewa Square, the venue of Nigerian independence celebrations in 1960, and also a key venue of the Festival of Black Arts and Culture FESTAC ’77, notably hosting a concert of the great musician an activist Miriam Makeba. The important legacy of FESTAC is seen in its ambition to create a planetary-scale project that celebrates and promotes African cultures of the continent and its diasporas. Also important as a point of reference is the 6th Pan African Congress in 1974 in Dar es Salaam, the first of the series to take place on the African continent. How can this cultural inheritance be reimagined in Lagos fifty years later?
The Lagos Biennial brings together artists who explore how to create an operative notion of refuge that can offer alternate paths towards constructing renewable communities and work towards climate justice in this historical moment of systemic crisis. It offers an opportunity to reassess the promises, disappointments, and ongoing ramifications of the nation-state model with its panoply of modes of governance under the aegis of global capital. The critical issues of this 21st century – even though global in reach – are played out in local, national, and regional spaces. Their profound implications and effects on our lives are enabled and activated in the present by choices made at the level of the individual or community.
By situating Lagos as an international geopolitical nerve point and an international hub for artistic expression, the biennial opens a speculative space for the fabrication of alternate realities.
https://www.lagos-biennial.org/