AS two exhibitions of international scope add visual content to the Lagos cultural week, a different side to the much-battered image of Nigerians abroad is being celebrated.The two events, Naija-Italia and Africa: See You See Me, being organised as part of the Lagos Black Heritage Festival (LBHF) 2012, are featuring works of Nigerian, Italian photographers and other nationals from Europe and North America.Tomorrow, Thursday, April 5 at the new exhibition gallery, Kongi's Harvest, Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos, Naija-Italia will open, and run till April 29, 2012.According to the curator of the exhibitions, Awam Amkpa, Africa: See You See Me will open on Saturday, April 7, at the Nike Art Gallery, Lekki-Epe Expressway, Lagos, and run till April 21, 2012. The show, he disclosed, will move to the National Museum, Onikan Lagos from April 23 to May 2, 2012.Earlier, the curator, a US-based Nigerian Professor of Africana Studies, New York University, in an online chat, had explained that Africa See You See Me, is a tour exhibition, that had been shown in Portugal, Italy and China. He said it's a cross-continental show featuring works of 34 internationally renowned photographers.The Nigerian photographers include J.D. Ojeikhere, George Osodi, Uche Okpa Iroha, Charles Ologeh, Dokubo Soibifa, and US-based Andrew Dosunmu.And perhaps to show the other side of Nigerian story hidden from the world, European photographers, ironically, have taken up the challenge.Awam explained that, 'Naija-Italia (the section of the show featuring at the LBHF) is a story of Nigerians told by Italian photographers. All photographers in this show are Italians. It's about Africans representing themselves and the influence of such representations on modern photography. It is here that there are more Nigerians than any other nationality.'The exhibition, he noted, 'is still in line with the theme of the Lagos Black Heritage Festival,' which is Black Mediterranean: The Nigerian-Italian Connections.Given the low interest in photography in Nigeria, is this exhibition bringing any support to promote the discipline here, now or in the future'Awam disclosed that in collaboration with Culture Advocates Caucus (CAC), Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) and the Goethe Institut, a symposium will hold at CCA on April 6, perhaps to address this and other related challenges. 'The topic, Visual Culture/Visual Activism focuses on how Nigerians have led the way in many respects in using photography as a form of visual activism.'Over the years, Nigerians, home and in the Diaspora worry over negative images, which do not always represent majority of the people's characters. For Naija-Italia, it's a celebration of Nigerians' resilience abroad', said Amkpa. 'It does not in any way promote the shortcoming of Nigerians. Naija-Italia documents their elegance, work and resistance to racist oppressions. The Italian photographers in the exhibition are advocates for Nigerian and African immigrants.'Awam trained as a performing artistat Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. He also trained in the U.K. combining performing with visual arts by making films and curating film and photography exhibitions as well as a set of activities in Africa, Europe and North America.As the current Dean of the School of Visual and Performing Arts, Kwara State University in Malete, Ilorin, his interest in Nigerian art and culture, he argued, 'is not a recent interest but actually the foundation of my artistic and scholarly activities worldwide.'Africa: See You See Meshowcases recent African interventions on how Africans are portrayed. It challenges derogatory representations of Africa while promoting resilient and determined images of Africans on the continent and Diaspora.''The exhibition also shows the influence of African photographers on non-Africans currently collaborating with their African counterparts.'On the challenges of Nigerians in Europe, he said: 'Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by various means to destinations in Europe, Nigerians arrive voluntarily or otherwise with a determined resolution to improve themselves or others. Picking up jobs in factories, offices, hospitals, cleaning agencies, streets and farms ' they work, socialise, and invent communities sometimes to the surprise of their host nations. Beyond the rituals of their lives they also sought elegance and beauty and used their presence in Italian publics to capture themselves in images.'He chronicled how the Italian photographers started the other side of the story. 'A few years ago, Marco Ambrosi, Aldo Sodoma and Matteo Danesin embarked on an inspiring project called Portraits in Black in which they told stories of these Nigerians who navigate everyday life in Italy. Combining influences from African photographic practices by Seydou Keita, Malik Sidibe and J.D. Ojeikhere, with their own skills as highly regarded artistic and commercial photographers; their collective enterprise produced an artistic document and collaboration of sorts with their subjects. Their portraits produced in make shift studios, homes, religious and social spaces together gave their subjects opportunities to pose, as they would like to be seen ' occupying multiple worlds of Africa in Europe, Nigeria in Italy.'The curatorial team also includes associate curatorMadala Hilaire. The exhibitions are in collaboration with Culture Advocates Caucus (CAC), with support by the Goethe Institut, Nike Art Centre and Centre for Contemporary Art, CAC.
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