Goethe-Institut Nigeria has announced the selection of three artists for the Lagos-Berlin residencies initiated in 2015 to strengthen the dialogue between Germany and Nigeria.
The selected artists are Ojudun Taiwo Jacob (Nigeria) and Natalia Orendain del Castillo and Jumoke Adeyanju (Germany).
The announcement was made by the organisation via a press statement signed by Aderinsola Ajao. The statement reads in full:
In 2018, the Goethe-Institut Nigeria in the context of its partnership with the Centre for Art and Urbanistics (ZK/U) in Berlin, the cultural office of local government Berlin Mitte, SAVVY Contemporary Art Space Berlin and the Arthouse Foundation in Lagos, continues with a residency programme for artists and curators from Berlin and Lagos. The selected artists are Ojudun Taiwo Jacob (Nigeria), Natalia Orendain del Castillo and Jumoke Adeyanju (Germany).
Since its founding in 2015, the aim of Artist’s and Curator’s Residency, Berlin-Lagos has been to strengthen the dialogue between Germany and Nigeria. It provides an individualised offer in order to get an insight into the art and culture scene of the respective city and the partner institutions. They will offer possibilities of exchange, mentoring, making contacts and the presentation of work results.
The first to participate in this project in 2015 was the artist and curator Folakunle Oshun from Lagos, Nigeria. He supported Nigerian artist Emeka Ogboh at working on his solo exhibition ‘No food for the lazy man’ at Galerie Wedding. The following year, performance and video artist Tito Aderemi-Ibitola presented her projects that have been dealing with topics like female identity, gender roles and racism.
Thanks to the new partner Arthouse Foundation, the residency programme could be set up bilaterally in 2018. For the first time, two artists, living and working in Berlin, have the opportunity to come to Lagos for a six-week stay each in the cultural capital of western Africa.
Two juries in Germany and Nigeria selected the residency holders among more than 60 applications.
About the Artists
Ojudun Taiwo Jacob is a multimedia performance artist from Lagos. He lives and works as a
performer, chorographer and curator in the Bariga district on the mainland of Lagos. In 2012 he founded the Illuminate Theatre Lagos, whose artistic director he has been since.
He received his choreographic and artistic, conceptual training through his many years of collaboration in the Crown Troupe of Africa in Bariga, Lagos. In particular, the jury was impressed both by its strong artistic profile, which he developed in a self-named existentialist style, despite art-far-removed contexts, and by his concept, which deliberately addresses the Western context. Ojudun Taiwo Jacob’s art works have a strong connection to public space using participatory approaches. Galerie Wedding has a specific interest in promoting performative positions in the context of visual art. The jury believes that the residence Ojudun Taiwo Jacob’s work can provide crucial artistic impulses for the further development of his work.
Natalia Orendain del Castillo is a visual artist and scenographer born in 1983 in Mexico. In her native country, she started her studies in visual arts specializing in sculpture. With an ongoing interest in all performative arts, she continued her studies in the Kunsthochschule in Berlin Weissensee as a stage and costume designer.
Since 2012, she has participated in several forms of experimental, documentary and music theatre productions in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Prague, Norway and Mexico.
Her artistic research focuses on the subjects of space perception and production, sound as creator of space and the performativity within the everyday; making use of immersive, installative and participatory formats to explore the audience´s experience.
Jumoke Adeyanju was raised in Aachen, Germany. She studied Area Studies Asia/Africa at the Humboldt University of Berlin, now pursuing a Master Degree in South- and Southeast Asia Studies. Jumoke has worked as a research assistant and undergrad-lecturer (teaching on Necropolitics, Fanon, charity politics and Performing Arts in East Africa) at the Humboldt University and Alice Salomon University, respectively.
Prior to her academic journey, Jumoke dived into Hip Hop culture as a young dancer.
In 2012, Jumoke organized the first Break Dance Battle of Zanzibar. She recently joined the newly founded “blackism collective”, a multidisciplinary movement artists collective. They premiered their first piece “(self-)vations” at SAVVY contemporary in March 2018.
Next to dance and academia, Jumoke has successfully evolved as a host of multiple cultural events and as a multilingual poet. She has been on stage at various occasions in Germany, Tanzania and New York performing her poems in English, German, Kiswahili and Yorùbá.
Jumoke Adeyanju is the founder of “The Poetry Meets Series” and co-director of “Ujamaa
Culture Center e.V”, a community center for African-diasporic people, momentarily facilitating exhibitions/installations, african language courses (Twi) and film screenings.
Jumoke is also a freelance translator (German-English-Kiswahili), (vinyl-)DJ and radio host on Berlin Community Radio for YAASAA – an african media platform.
In her work as an allround-artist, she is interested in how various elements of expressive art forms interrelate and incorporate the potential to (re-)create moments of reviving other or rather lost selves.
About the Project Partners
Goethe-Institut Nigeria: The Goethe-Institut e.V. is the globally active cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany. Goethe-Institut Nigeria, the German Cultural Centre in Lagos, organizes and supports a broad spectrum of activities that present the German culture in Nigeria and promote international cultural exchange through projects in cooperation with Nigerian partners. Through these partnerships, the Goethe-Institut encourages local creative development.
www.goethe.de/nigeria
Arthouse Foundation: The Arthouse Foundation is the work – and residency space of this program. There will be a presentation in the end of the six weeks stay.
The Arthouse Foundation is a non-profit organisation that aims to encourage the creative development of contemporary art in Nigeria. Through a residency-based programme, the
Arthouse Foundation provides a platform for artists to expand their practice and experiment with new art forms and ideas. By establishing a network that supports cross-cultural exchange between Nigerian and international artists, the Arthouse Foundation embraces contemporary art as an educational model to engage communities, promote social dialogue and advance the critical discourse of artistic practices.
www.arthousefoundation-ng.com
Galerie Wedding Berlin: The Gallery Wedding – Room for Contemporary Art is an urban gallery in Berlin Mitte. Here the binding final presentation takes place. It is located in the middle of an urban and multicultural district between Müllerstraße and Leopoldplatz in a historic building of Expressionism. Just as the building was part of a utopian social design, Galerie Wedding follows the claim to be a place for contemporary forms of artistic expression and forward-looking socio-political models.
www.galeriewedding.de
Savvy Contemporary Berlin: As Art Space, Discursive Platform, Food and Drink Place,
Njangi House, Space for Meetings SAVVY Contemporary is situated on the threshold of ideas and constructs of the West and the non-West, especially to understand and negotiate, and To deconstruct ideologies and connotations that are important for such constructs.
An important part of our culture is to work in a disciplinary way. With team members from
12 countries and 5 continents, trained as biotechnologists, art historians, cultural theorists, anthropologists, designers and artists, we think that interdisciplinary work is not enough, you have to be able to free yourself from the tight corset of your own discipline.
www.savvy-contemporary.com
Center for Art and Urbanism: The ZK / U is the place of work and residence of the residence. There it is also possible to participate in monthly presentations and consultations within a group of international residences.
The ZK / U sees itself as a laboratory of intermedial and interdisciplinary activities that deal artistically and scientifically with the phenomenon of the city. Temporary thematic focus programmes consolidate the creative exchange along contemporary issues.
Geography, anthropology, urban development, architecture and the social sciences meet contemporary artist positions ranging from contextual and intervention art to conceptual art and street art. In addition to partners from the fine arts, this thematic debate also ties in other artistic disciplines such as contemporary dance and theatre formats as well as music and literature.
www.zku-berlin.org