Lagos Fringe Celebrates 5 Years Of Building Up, Supporting Nigerian Creatives

Lagos Fringe is marking five years of building up and supporting Nigerian creatives.

In the fifth edition of festival scheduled to hold from November 22 – 27, 2022 at the Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos, Nigeria.

Themed New Narratives, the festival aims at interrogating how things worked in the space – and providing a platform for the development of new skills, new connections and collaborative workspace for creatives in the culture, arts and tech industry.

To do so, the festival is working with an entourage of local and foreign organization for a successful outing. These include exchange and empowerment programmes and masterclasses; film and media events, and exhibitions.

“During the festival week, there will be opportunities for exchange and empowerment programmes with established facilitators from the US, UK, Germany and Nigeria, with special focus on music, theatre, writing, film, dance and theatre, that will be delivered digitally or in person.

“We will bring in facilitators such as M.I Abaga; music maestro, Cobhams Asuquo; wordsmiths: Efe Paul and Titilope Sonuga; and others scheduled to engage festival participants in thematic working forums and workshop discusses that highlight key issues as well as examples of transferable practice. These sessions will offer facilitated debates and reflections on the key messages emerging from the theme this year,” said the festival director, Kenneth Uphopho.

Launched in 2018, Lagos Fringe is an open access, multidisciplinary arts festival and a not-for-profit ongoing development initiative committed to improving the livelihoods of artist(e)s as well as finding new voices in the Lagos creative scene.

Uphopho noted that the festival’s interest remains the same – a hub for creatives to express themselves.

“At a time like this, with the steady rise in unemployment amongst the youth and creatives, it has become important that creatives find a sense of place and belonging. The Lagos Fringe will continue holding periodic trainings prior to and during the festival every year to produce a wide range of impact including creative start-ups, jobs, products and services, funding opportunities, talent development, informal education and engagements, trainings, research and development. We also create excellent opportunities for networking and establishing sustainable network of partner organisations.”