My series ‘Afropunk, Lagos, 1982’ will be featured at HEK this November:

UNSCHARFE REALITÄTEN – REGIONALE 24» 

Saturday, 25.11.2023, 19:30 PM

About Afropunk Lagos, 1982

This series of images is a rebuttal to the social conservatism by way of formal and informal repressions that dominated my youth in Nigeria. There was a time when it was illegal for women to wear trousers, it was frowned upon socially, but also enforced by the military in very real and substantially threatening ways. It was an act of revolution and rebellion to be one’s self, especially if that self was a teenager who felt compelled to express herself with spiky coloured hair and dog chains fashioned into jewelry…

There still exists questionable legislation in Nigeria regarding freedom of personal expression, some of it in direct violation of human rights. However, without the benefit of a military regime to enforce said legislation, the newer climate of expanded social consciousness allows for some berth.

Afropunk, Lagos 1982 seeks to widen that envelope of tolerance with a little time travel hat trick. Courtesy of generative AI, the series documents the shenanigans of Lagos teens at the Area People Fest in 1982 held at a motor park usually used for evangelical revivals in Ikorodu, Lagos. Just a motley bunch of Lagos kids letting their freak flag fly.

“Everyone came dressed as cats. No one knows why.”

Curatorial Statement:

Who can still identify what is real when texts, images, or entire visual worlds can be designed with artificial intelligence at the click of a computer button? The works in the exhibition take us into virtual environments and digital constructions of reality. They address the digital transformation of our society, focusing on the body as a site of transformation as well as a site of memory. The visual worlds presented in the exhibition also explore these as spaces of possibility for new narratives, memories, and dreams by deconstructing cultural conceptions and world views and generating speculative narratives instead.

Artists: Artists: Ruth Baettig, Jonas Beile, Ana Brankovic, Onome Ekeh, Esther Hunziker, Johanna Mangold, Katrin Niedermeier, Lampyridæ Collective, Alexis Puget, Catherin Schöberl, Christian Schumacher

Curator: Sabine Himmelsbach, Assistance: Kimberley Rahn

«Unscharfe Realitäten – Regionale 24»

25.11-31.12.2023

@regionale_org

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