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Trip to the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) August 10th, 2008 Trip Leaders: Dr Stefan and Erika Cramer For those of us who want to familiarize ourselves with new media and experimental visual art practice in Nigeria, the Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Yaba is the place to visit. This tour will combine viewing an exhibition as well as a talk and introduction to the Centre, including the library, by the Artistic Director/Founder of CCA Lagos, Bisi Silva. The presently shown exhibition Paradise Lost: Revisiting the Niger Delta features the work of renowned Nigerian photographer George Osodi, who brings a complex, multifaceted perspective of the Niger Delta to a Lagos and international audience. His powerful documentary images highlight the daily lives of Niger Deltans, the civil unrest, the environmental degradation as a result of oil and gas exploration and the lost dreams of millions of people in one of the richest regions in Africa. Osodi’s presentation gained widespread international visibility when presented during the Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany. Bisi Silva, our host and lecturer, is an independent curator and art critic based in Lagos and London. She was co-curator of the Dakar Biennale in 2006. For some of us the trip started at the Cramer’s house.
From there we formed a convoy of 5 cars made its way to the CCA in Yaba on Queens Street. There we met Bisi and George who gave us a very warm welcome.
At that time we all gathered in the galleria located on the second floor of the building where Erica introduced our group.
Bisi started with an introduction of the exposition and a summary of George’s work, history and his objectives.
Then she walked us through the pictures while George answered all sorts of questions from our group.
The exposition had impressive pictures related to nature, living conditions and reality of the Delta region, including controversial topics like oil, military power and politics. In his next project he plans to expose the relationship between nature and how oil is produced in other places around the world including Norway, USA and Venezuela.
Once the gallery tour was over we came upstairs to the library where Bisi told us more about herself and what had motivated her to create the center. She gave us a summary of the library’s history, and explained its physical organization and how to use its services.
Soon the CCA is expected to provide an online computerized service linked with other libraries around the globe creating a fully functional international investigation point. A window to the world!!!
Erica presented thank you gifts to Bisi and George. All had a wonderful time!
That day, we were able to look the fabulous material available there. To close our visit we returned to the exposition downstairs for discussions with the artist and the curator about the subject of the work and its impact on each of us. We gave feedback of what we felt was good and points for possible improvements were also noted.
It was very interesting to witness that even though both curator and artist worked together on this exposition they sometimes had very different points of view of this very controversial topic. Constructive dialogue proved again to be effective and a catalyst for enrichment. We just had a blast!!!
With all my pleasure I will continue participating in NFS events.
Report and pictures by Omar Gómez Haubold (Venezuela). Thanks to Sheryl & Gordon Tank for their pictures.
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Lagos Branch
