MODUPE FADUGBA
Modupeola Fadugba is a multi-media artist using painting, drawing, and socially engaged installation. She holds a BEng Chemical Engineering and MA Economics from the University of Delaware, and MEd from Harvard University. She has participated in several solo and group exhibitions internationally, received awards on her project, The People’s Algorithm, and her works reside in notable collections. You are from Togo and Nigeria but trained in the West; how does the confluence of identities come together in your work? Does Western training inform how you approach local subject matter?
My parents were diplomats so we moved around a lot, from Togo to the US, Rwanda and Tanzania. I schooled in the US, and the UK and finished my last year of high school in Nigeria. From a technical perspective, though I have no formal art training beyond high school level, I have been able to build on the exposure I had in the visual arts whilst in secondary school in the UK. In relation to the subject matter I explore, I think when you grow up in the West as an African, you become acutely aware of your identity and your place in a global context because you have a basis for comparison. You start to ask why your home country and continent are so different (for better or for worse) from these other countries.
These questions, naive as they sound, led me not to criticize Nigeria but rather to believe that she can and will, with time and effort, do better. In order to do things differently, you first have to see them differently. As an artist, I try to visually translate these matters with interactive installations and paintings which form complementary platforms for reflecting on my concerns. In both, I am interested in deconstructing charged hierarchical relationships within the Nigerian context: men/women, government/citizens, group action/personal responsibility. I intend to engage my audience in a dialogue about Nigeria’s current social and political landscape, and perhaps incite both individual and collective change. Having showcased abroad and with your work in notable collections away from home, what does it mean to you to show on a huge local platform like ART X Lagos?
I have done the mighty art trifecta this year; New York, London and Paris, but there’s absolutely nowhere like home! Lagos is particularly special to me because I launched my career here at the National Art Competition in 2014, which also incidentally took place at the Civic Centre, so it does feel like a homecoming of sorts. Over the years, Lagos has been extremely supportive of me, and now ART X Lagos has blossomed to play a significant role in strengthening links between artists, galleries, collectors, curators and scholars.
It’s encouraging for artists to see and be a part of these mammoth home-based, yet international platforms. With Nigerians frequently traveling abroad, what we normally see is a one-way cultural (not to mention, economic) exchange. ART X Lagos represents a homegrown and sustainable structure that makes the world come to Africa, not the other way round. It takes considerable passion, effort, faith and foresight to create such a structure and it’s evident that all the ingredients for long-term success are there. I’m very pleased to join the other artists, galleries and panellists on the ART X Lagos stage, as we all welcome the world to Lagos. 13