With an impressive management of the truly-challenging space, the “abandoned” Independence Building in the business district of Lagos Island, the Lagos Biennale draws global attention to the dysfunctional nature of the Nigerian nation; especially its awkward sense of history and being.
The choice of the Independence Bulding as the Biennale site is itself a service to “national history,” a nudge on the need for rediscovery, redefinition, recontruction, all of which should naturally lead to restoration, not just of the nation but also the psyche of the people inhabiting the space called Nigeria.
In four floors, artists of diverse artistic temperament, hues and orientations give life to an otherwise depressed, shameful, lifeless national edifice — one of the tragic stories of Nigeria.
The Team at the Biennale is doing a great job, redirecting attention to those abandoned historical sites in the city, said the geologist, art critic and patron, Toyin Akinosho, reminding that the first edition had held in the long-abandoned, now decrepit and depressed sprawling Nigeria Railway Compound in Ebute Metta.
And to Dr. Kunle Adeyemi, painter, Dean of School of Arts, Yaba College of Technology: “With the Biennale, Nigerian Art has truly gone international. Fola (Osun) and the team are doing so well. I am very impressed.”
For Toyin Oshinowo, the Assistant Curator of the Biennale, “the Independence Building is very well appointed. Imagine many people who came here could not even locate it even as towering and imposing as it is. It is a forgotten piece of gorgeous property. It is good to refocus attention on it.”
‘A History of a City in a Box (2019)’ by Ndidi Dike.
This is the most fascinating work at the Biennale, attracting heavy footfalls by guests.
Occupying a large disused office space on the 2nd floor of the 20-floor Independence Bulding, it is constructed out of archival photographs, documents, found earth, and paper and wood file boxes.
In concept, content, form and execution, the installation, at a glance, tells the tragic story of a stagnated country ostensiby advancing on a dyscfunctional system. A fundamentally flawed system in which the political authorities perenially game the citizen by deliberately ensuring they remain uninformed about the goings-on in the country, and thus keep them in perpetual mental penury.
The foundation of the corruptive ethos was laid by the colonial system, according to the artist, but same “government secret” system has continued nearly six decades after Independence.
Says Ndidi: “Archival documents and images of the city are variously buried and concealed with the boxes, and so models how urban political systems depend on the suppression of information to maintain order. Information is one of the greatest currencies in Lagos. Information is hidden and buried; it is inaccessible to the people, and only permitted to those in power.”
In his own view, Antawan Byrd, curator of the work said, “During her initial site visit to Independence House earlier this year, Ndidi Dike discovered the remnants of an office space on the building’s second floor that still contained bureaucratic government documents from the 1980s.
“As a precondition of this building’s use for the biennial, the office had to be closed-off with plywood to conceal these documents; the office now exists in the form a large impenetrable box. Inspired by her discovery and subsequent concealment of documents, in this installation Dike reflects on the aesthetics of bureaucracy in Lagos by assembling hundreds of wooden file boxes of the sort introduced during the colonial era to protect and conceal information.
“Archival documents and images of the city are variously buried and concealed with the boxes, and so models how urban political systems depend on the suppression of information to maintain order.”
These precious discoveries thus form the content of the installation, in which she reflects on “the aesthetics of bureaucracy in Lagos by assembling hundreds of wooden file boxes of the sort introduced during the colonial era to protect and conceal information.”
A guest, Josephine Igberaese, former Director of Drama with the National Troupe Of Nigeria, instantly renamed the work, “Government Bureaucracy,” which is just very apt. Beyond the artist’s intention, the work also draws attention to the culture of waste that defines the country; a narrative reflected in the depressive state of the Biennale’s hosting site — itself a long abandoned once-elegant property.
The Biennale runs through late November.
***Anikulapo, senior journalist and culture activist, is the Chair of Committee for Relevant Arts (CORA)
