Lagos Art Week confronts history, identity and belonging

Lagos, Nigeria – A woman in an elegant red dress walks down a hallway, turning to take in her surroundings. A large painting catches her eye, and she steps into the booth for a closer look.

Around her, visitors move between 15 partitioned exhibition spaces, pausing to study the artworks. Thousands have gathered to admire, connect with and collect works from across the world.

It is the third day of ART X Lagos, West Africa’s premier and largest art fair, held from November 5–8 as the centrepiece of Nigeria’s annual art week. This year’s programme features exhibitions, installations, music, discussions and film screenings at the Federal Palace Hotel on Victoria Island. Galleries and museums across Lagos are also hosting exhibitions.

Together, the exhibitions explore cultural erosion, migration and belonging, examining how art can preserve collective memory and reconnect people with their heritage. They also reveal a cultural side of Lagos that extends beyond its reputation for commerce, traffic and relentless hustle.

The past in the present

Ndidi Dike, a contemporary sculptor and multidisciplinary artist, is among those exhibiting. Her installation, Residues of Past Encounters II, features a wooden canoe suspended above a glass surface, with sand arranged around its edges. Above it hangs fabric in the Adire style, associated with Yoruba women of southwest Nigeria,  bearing silhouettes of tightly packed people.

The sound of waves crashing against the shore plays softly in the background, evoking the Atlantic coastline at Badagry, a historic Nigerian town that was once a notorious transit point for enslaved West Africans. The sand and sound were sourced from the town.

Dike’s installation explores the intertwined histories of the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, memory and migration. The reflective surface beneath the canoe evokes absence, remembrance and the passage of time.

“The sound of the waves makes you contemplate, makes you think deeper, and then you begin to imagine, perhaps, how those who have left our shores under various circumstances must have been feeling mentally, the prospect of leaving home and never, perhaps, seeing it again,” Dike told Al Jazeera.

The work draws a connection between historical displacement and contemporary migration. Centuries after the transatlantic slave trade, many young Africans still undertake dangerous journeys to Europe, crossing the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. Some die along the way, while others face exploitation and trafficking.

“I find that there is a correlation between slavery and what is happening now. It’s always the best of our demographic that are taken or who decide to go abroad. For me, I think it’s good to look at that correlation between the historical and contemporary circumstances,” she said.

Beyond the vessel

Now in its 11th edition, this year’s fair takes the theme ‘A New Chapter, A New Decade’, drawing inspiration from the pioneering generation of Nigerian artists, architects, educators and thinkers who helped shape modernism in the country.

ART X founder Tokini Peterside said the older generation demonstrated that innovation need not mean abandoning cultural inheritance. Instead, it can emerge from a deeper understanding of identity and the confidence to interpret it in new ways.

“For me, the thread connecting these presentations is the idea that our histories are not simply things to preserve or look back upon. They are living sources of knowledge that can inform what we create next,” Peterside told Al Jazeera. “While the exhibitions are distinct, collectively they reveal a creative landscape that is increasingly self-assured, intellectually ambitious and deeply engaged with the world around it.”

One artist whose legacy is being celebrated is Ladi Kwali, a Nigerian potter and ceramicist. Her work features in an exhibition titled Beyond the Vessel. Beside a large photograph of Kwali at work, her handcrafted pots and ceramics display motifs of scorpions, lizards and butterflies, alongside intricate patterns.

Kwali came from a long line of Gbari women potters in the village of Kwali, near Abuja. Pottery was part of everyday life in the community, but her talent took her from local recognition to international acclaim. Her work has been exhibited and collected by museums and galleries around the world. Her portrait has also appeared on Nigerian currency.

Jareh Das, curator of the exhibition, said preserving Kwali’s legacy would remind future generations of her achievements and inspire young artists, particularly in a country where documenting and maintaining cultural heritage can be challenging.

“Culture is not always outside, but looking at what exists within and how you can draw from that, how you can rise above immediate challenges … through something as familiar as pottery,” Das said.

Art and a new generation

Barbara Barungi, dressed in Adire, moves between booths in search of new works. At Afriart Gallery, a Kampala-based space exhibiting Ugandan art, she finds a painting by Daniel Atenyi made with coffee.

“It is very Nigerian and it also just shows you the vibe of Lagos, but it creates a safe place to just relax to forget the hustle and bustle out there,” she said of the fair.

Barungi jokingly described it as Nigeria’s ‘Met Gala’, comparing the fashion on display with the annual fundraising event in the United States known for its celebrity outfits.

The fair also aims to widen access to art, particularly for younger generations. Its educational programme welcomed more than 750 schoolchildren, introducing them to contemporary art and the stories behind the works.

“For many of these children, visiting ART X Lagos may be one of their earliest encounters with contemporary art. That experience can be transformative. It allows them to see creativity not as something distant or inaccessible, but as something they can participate in and contribute to,” Peterside said.

Adeniyi Adewole’s Breath Beneath the Waters, a fibreglass sculpture, reflects his personal struggles with depression, which kept him indoors and unable to work for a time.

“When I came back to work, I started creating work on how I have been able to move away from that blue period to a period of peace,” he said. He hopes viewers will experience sombre reflection, calm and peace when they encounter the work.

Beyond the main fair, Mercy Imiegha’s group exhibition, Every House Remembers, brings together four artists exploring how bodies, objects and domestic spaces preserve memory, history and spiritual identity. The Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, a Nigerian-founded artist residency programme, is also organising a citywide art tour, extending the programme across Lagos.

Memory, loss and belonging

Joel Benson’s feature-length documentary, Mothers of Chibok, explores the lives of three parents and a woman abducted and later freed during Boko Haram’s 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from their dormitory in Chibok. Amnesty International reported in April 2024 that 82 girls remained in captivity. The film follows relatives still grieving the absence of their daughters.

“It is important to tell this type of story because it is more convenient to forget and just move on,” Benson said. The film prompted conversations about insecurity and attacks on girls in Nigeria.

Despite more than a decade of grief, Benson said, the parents have continued to navigate life through laughter, humour, pain, tears and faith. He hopes the film will move audiences and authorities beyond empathy towards action that can shape policy and improve security.

As the afternoon sun gives way to dusk, more visitors arrive in bold Afrocentric fashion. Some browse art books in the fair’s library, while others discuss the works that have caught their attention. Outside, people gather beneath umbrellas in the cafe area to eat, relax and network.

“I hope the fair offers a space for discovery and connection, and that visitors leave with a deeper appreciation of the richness and complexity of artistic expression from Africa and its diaspora, as well as a desire to continue exploring the histories, ideas and perspectives they have encountered,” Peterside said.