‘Why LagosPhoto is re-presenting civil war, FESTAC 77’

The organisers of the annual LagosPhoto festival have explained that it’s 2017 theme: “Regimes of Truth” will be exploring realities as they were during the three-year Nigerian civil war and the 1977 Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC).

At a briefing to herald the three-week photo festival in Lagos, Director African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), Azu Nwagbogu said, whereas both the civil war and the FESTAC ‘77 were events that attracted global attentions, they still need to be revisited for historical purposes.

“There are two major historical events that continue to define the global visual representation of Africa and both historic events happened here in Nigeria: the Nigeria civil war with the declaration of the nation state of Biafra and the second world black and African Festival of Arts and Culture also known as FESTAC 77.

“The latter’s attempt to redress the damage done to the image and representation of Africa in the media clearly did not attain its full potential and LagosPhoto will explore the legacy of FESTAC and the Nigeria civil war,” Nwagbogu said.

According to the AFF Director, the festival will also be exploring the various tensions between faith, reality and belief through smokescreens with ambivalence a dynamic intersection of photographic encounters featuring the most recent creative output and world premiere of the work by renowned award-winning artist, Samuel Fosso, whose new series “Black Pope” delves into politic of religion in Africa and confronts it’s image dissimulations.

“We rotate from one belief system to another; from religion to science with Where Will We Go? Rising seas as Dutch photographer, Kadir van Lohuizen’s, presents his compressive photo-essay that explores the impact of human activity on global climate change with a focus on some of the world’s most challenged cities,” Nwagbogu said.

Organisers added that aside participating artists from Nigeria, there would be representations from Sudan, Morocco, Senegal, France, South Africa, Spain, Cote d’Ivoire, USA, Netherlands, UK, Cameroon, Angola, Ghana, Benin, Italy, Algeria, Uganda, Kenya and Sweden to make it a memorable event.