The 2nd Lagos Biennial of Contemporary Art titled, ‘How to Build a Lagoon with Just a Bottle of Wine?’, holding from October 26 – November 30, 2019 at various venues across Lagos, Nigeria has made a call for artists intending to participate.
Such artists, the organisers say in a statement, can send in a range of proposals including those that consider how artworks create environments that can be inhabited, or mediate interactions between humans and nature.
They can also “Propose models for fostering empathy and compassionate approaches to cohabitation in light of urbanisation.
“Address the impact of architecture and built environments on specific communities, social dynamics, and/or sensory experience.
“Meditate on the relationship between cities of today and deeper histories of urbanisation and economic exchange.
“Speculate on the future role of art and technology in forging sustainable ways of living and analyze the effects of urbanisation on communication systems and print culture”.
It is to be curated by Tosin Oshinowo, Antawan I. Byrd, and Hansi Momodu-Gordon
Deadline for submission is March 20, 2019 and artists wishing to participate in the biennial are invited to apply by submitting a complete application form and supporting materials. Applications can be submitted via an online application at https://www.lagos-biennial.org/open-call/ or by e-mail at opencall@lagos-biennial.org
With an estimated 21 million inhabitants, the statement explains, Lagos ranks among the largest cities in the world and is the most populous in Africa.
“In recent decades, the city’s built environment has expanded exponentially through large-scale land reclamation initiatives, major industrial and luxury development projects, and new transportation infrastructures.
“This steady growth has transformed and amplified Lagos’s distinctive history as a cosmopolitan hub, and incubator of cultural and technological innovation. Yet such rapid change continues to raise pressing questions—facing cities across the globe—about the impact of urbanisation on conceptions of citizenship, the role of information systems, environmental sustainability, and socioeconomic equality”. The organisers say forthcoming biennial will take the city of Lagos as its epicentre and point of departure for a broader investigation into how contemporary art and design reckon with the nature of built environments today.