Venue is Tafawa Balewa Square unless otherwise indicated.
Saturday 3 February 2024
| 10am | Lagos Biennial 2024 Press Preview |
| 12.30pm | Lagos Biennial 2024 – Welcome (AGIP Hall, Muson Centre) N’Goné Fall, Lagos Biennial Board Folakunle Oshun, Lagos Biennial Founder and Co-Artistic Director Kathryn Weir, Lagos Biennial Co-Artistic Director |
| 2pm | Lagos Biennial: Gates open to the public |
| 3.30pm | Performances Kukily Afrofeminist Arts Collective (XTRÆNCESTRAL) Activating their installation, members of the Kukily Afrofeminist Arts Collective will embody xtræncestors, guardians of this world who transmit messages to guide the audience in imagining better futures. |
| 5.30pm | Performances Keziah Jones Celebrated singer-songwriter guitarist Keziah Jones performs the Nigerian national anthem live in Tafawa Balewa Square. |
| 6pm | Lagos Biennial: Gates Close |
Sunday 4 February 2024
| 11am | Lagos Biennial: Gates open |
| 12.30pm | Performance/Worldmade communities Re-enactment in collaboration with Calabar University of Darlene Blackburn’s FESTAC ‘77 performance From Africa to America, presented by Romi Crawford – The New Art School Modality. |
| 2pm | Performance/Worldmade communities Communities of refuge Lagos Biennial Co-Artistic Director Kathryn Weir in discussion with Em’kal Eyongakpa, Onyeka Igwe, Colleen Ndemeh Fitzgerald (Kukily Collective), Tabita Rezaire and Justin Randolph Thompson. |
| 4pm | Performance Raymond Pinto: diffractions (TRACES OF ECSTASY) Roving through the Traces of Ecstasy pavilion, artist and choreographer Pinto is joined by sound artists, Ayomide Kalejaiye (SAROSAYÉ) and Xavier Emmanuel to perform a score that combines bodily movement, experimental music and clothing (specially designed by Adeju Thompson of the Lagos Space Programme). Taking as a starting point the gestures of the Gẹlẹdẹ – a masquerade ritually performed by men in honour of female deities and ancestors, the performance reframes indigenous spirituality and Black diasporic archives of sound and movement to illuminate decolonial registers of queer embodiment. |
| 5pm | Performance/Worldmade communities Jermay Michael Gabriel & Justin Randolph Thompson: Members don’t git weary A film and sound performance that draws on the history of the First and Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists (Paris, 1956, and Rome, 1959) to restate and re-envision their calls for unity and collective advancement. In the film, sites of Pan African memory and imagination are cut against oppressive manifestations of fortified and bordered nationalism. |
| 6pm | Lagos Biennial: Gates close |
Monday 5 February 2024
| 10am | Lagos Biennial: Gates open |
| 10am | Round table/Worldmade communities Romi Crawford in discussion with Darlene Blackburn, Analise Samantha Delphine Sesay and Ryan Tenney on the New Art School Modality revisiting FESTAC ‘77. |
| 11.30am | Round table/Worldmade communities Pedagogies of refuge Egyptian curator and educator Sarah Rifky in discussion with N’Goné Fall and Chioke I’Anson on the present and future of horizontal art pedagogies and ‘pedagogy as medium’. |
| 2pm | Round table/Worldmade communities Technologies of refuge: strategies of hiding in plain sight Ezekiel Dixon-Román in discussion with Rabeeha Adnan, Nolan Oswald Dennis (TRACES OF ECSTASY), Anna Ehrenstein (THE ALBANIAN CONFERENCE), Sephora Woldu (ALIENS IN ERITREA). |
| 4pm | Performance Anna Ehrenstein, DNA, Rebekka Pokua Korang, Vidisha-Fadescha (THE ALBANIAN CONFERENCE) A performance activating their installation inspired by the first Afro-Asian Writers Conference held in 1958 in Tashkent, in collaboration with local artists Chima, Wisdom and Rejoice from the Oworonshoki Dance Community and combining spoken words, dance and live music. |
| 5pm | Lagos Biennial: Gates close |
Tuesday 6 February 2024
| 10am | Lagos Biennial: Gates open |
| 12pm | Round table/Worldmade communities Architectures of refuge ‘Realigned imaginaries: Strategies of architectural insertion in West Africa’ Lagos Biennial Founder and Co-Artistic Director Director Folakunle Oshun in discussion with Cécile Doustaly, Professor of Heritage Studies and Cultural Policy (UMR Héritages, CY Cergy Paris Universite). |
| 2pm | Round table/Worldmade communities Ecologies of refuge Lagos Biennial Co-Artistic Director Kathryn Weir in discussion with artists Yussef Agbo-Ola, Maria Thereza Alves, Temitayo Ogunbiyi and Feda Wardak on how they engage with political ecology, ecological justice and more-than-human ecologies in their work. |
| 3pm-5pm | Sonic interventions Em’kal Eyongakpa Sonic activations around the installation Betok babhi, Babhi betandat, bassem drawing on artistic research/ reflections in the refugee resettlement camps in Nigeria’s Cross River state where Eyongakpa initiated ‘Creatives tent’ community art hub/ creatives refuge. Presented together with collaborators based between Lagos and the refugee settlements in the Cross River Basin using instruments that employ household receptacles and hybrid communication tools to create polyrhythmic beat generators and polyphonic experiences. |
| 5pm | Lagos Biennial: Gates close |
Wednesday 7 February 2024
| 10am | Lagos Biennial: Gates open |
| 12pm-5pm | Traces of Ecstasy Seminar (Alliance Française/Mike Adenuga Centre) Curated and with introductory remarks by KJ Abudu. Presentations and discussions on postcolonial statecraft and indigeneity with Zoé Samudzi and Emmanuel Iduma; on queerness, coloniality, and spirituality with Roberto Strongman; and on digitality and African anarchic futures with Neema Githere and Nolan Oswald Dennis. |
| 3pm-5pm | Sonic interventions Em’kal Eyongakpa Sonic activations around the installation Betok babhi, Babhi betandat, bassem, drawing on artistic research/ reflections in the refugee resettlement camps in Nigeria’s Cross River state where Eyongakpa initiated ‘Creatives tent’ community art hub/ creatives refuge. Presented together with collaborators based between Lagos and the refugee settlements in the Cross River Basin using instruments that employ household receptacles and hybrid communication tools to create polyrhythmic beat generators and polyphonic experiences. |
| 5.30pm | Artist talks Yussef Agbo-Ola & Stéphanie Brossard (Alliance Française/Mike Adenuga Centre |
| 5pm | Lagos Biennial: Gates close |
Thursday 8 February 2024
| 10am | Lagos Biennial: Gates open |
| 3pm-5pm | Sonic interventions Em’kal Eyongakpa Sonic activations around the installation Betok babhi, Babhi betandat, bassem, drawing on artistic research/ reflections in the refugee resettlement camps in Nigeria’s Cross River state where Eyongakpa initiated ‘Creatives tent’ community art hub/ creatives refuge. Presented together with collaborators based between Lagos and the refugee settlements in the Cross River Basin using instruments that employ household receptacles and hybrid communication tools to create polyrhythmic beat generators and polyphonic experiences. |
| 5pm | Lagos Biennial: Gates close |
Friday 9 February 2024
| 10am | Lagos Biennial: Gates open |
| 3pm-5pm | Screening BB Shasore, Platter of Gold 2019 (119 mins) A feature-length version of the seven-part series Journey of an African Colony, depicting the intricate history of Nigeria and revealing untold stories about its struggle for independence from British rule in 1960. Groundbreaking historical research unveils the lesser-known narratives of everyday Nigerians’ small rebellions and agitations against colonialism fighting for the Independence of their nation – contrary to the idea that this was handed over on a platter. |
| 3pm-5pm | Sonic interventions Em’kal Eyongakpa Sonic activations around the installation Betok babhi, Babhi betandat, bassem, drawing on artistic research/ reflections in the refugee resettlement camps in Nigeria’s Cross River state where Eyongakpa initiated ‘Creatives tent’ community art hub/ creatives refuge. Presented together with collaborators based between Lagos and the refugee settlements in the Cross River Basin using instruments that employ household receptacles and hybrid communication tools to create polyrhythmic beat generators and polyphonic experiences. |
| 4pm | Performance Kukily Afrofeminist Arts Collective (XTRÆNCESTRAL) Activating their installation, members of the Kukily Afrofeminist Arts Collective will embody xtræncestors, guardians of this world who transmit messages to guide the audience in imagining better futures. |
| 5pm | Lagos Biennial: Gates close |
Saturday 10 February 2024
| 10am | Lagos Biennial: Gates open |
| 11am | Performance Odun Orimolade: Onipon A performance about seeking safety and refuge, both physically and psychologically. A hundred costumed participants transition along the environs of the Tafawa Balewa Square Lagos from one navigational point to another. Onipon references the elasticity and resilience of the human mind when subjected to pressures of refuging. |
| 1pm–4pm | Workshop/Worldmade communities Chioke I’Anson: New art, old tools: how to use technology to become more original A workshop about how tools shape art and media practices. About inspiration, art and technology. And podcasting. |
| 3pm-5pm | Sonic interventions Em’kal Eyongakpa Sonic activations around the installation Betok babhi, Babhi betandat, bassem, drawing on artistic research/ reflections in the refugee resettlement camps in Nigeria’s Cross River state where Eyongakpa initiated ‘Creatives tent’ community art hub/ creatives refuge. Presented together with collaborators based between Lagos and the refugee settlements in the Cross River Basin using instruments that employ household receptacles and hybrid communication tools to create polyrhythmic beat generators and polyphonic experiences. |
| 4pm | Performance Peter Oke and Rume Onosode, Boys on the Brink 2022 (60 mins) Followed by a Q&A with Rume Onosode Boys on the Brink (2022) is a coming-of-age documentary that sheds light on the many overlooked struggles and undervalued victories experienced by young Nigerians through the lens of six young boys living in Lagos. |
| 5pm | Lagos Biennial 2024 closes |
