Lagos Biennial 2024 Explores ‘Refuge’ As A Concept Of A Nation-State & Physical Space

In its 2024 edition scheduled to hold February 3 through 10, Lagos Biennial is exploring ‘refuge’ as a concept of a nation-state and physical space.

To be hosted at the historic Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) Lagos, once a racecourse in the colonial period, and a political, cultural and commercial events space post-Independence – hosting the 1977 Festival of Black Arts and Culture FESTAC, the biennial will reflect on TBS’s place in relation to political allegiance, territory, sovereignty, encounter and alliance.

On the other hand, the biennial will convene artistes to create an operative notion of refuge as an alternate path to constructing renewable communities and work towards climate justice in this historical moment of systemic crisis.

With the above move, the biennial unlike any other biennials will shift attention away from the usual ‘exhibitions’ towards experimentation in non-conventional modes of exhibition making, thus shifting from the idea of the work as ‘an end in itself’ towards ‘generative models and prototypes that continue to activate possibilities in the world’.

Lagos Biennial 2024 is supported by the Guest Artist Space (G.A.S), it’s production by A White Space Creative Agency (AWCA), Lagos, with Royal Air Maroc as the official air carrier of the 2023, 2025 and 2027.

Full list of participating artists in the biennial will be announced in November, 2023.

“By situating Lagos as an international geopolitical nerve point and an international hub for artistic expression, the biennial opens a speculative space for the fabrication of alternate realities,” said the festival organizers.