An African sculpture can travel across a border with a label that identifies the collector more readily than the people who made it. What could a performance tell an audience that the label leaves out? A public discussion planned for Saturday, 7 November, at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos will take up questions of that kind.
Third Space Art Foundation set out the Lagos programme in a statement issued on 3 November. The foundation and the centre are presenting the West African edition of 1922 Revisited. The programme takes its name from an exhibition of 33 African sculptures at the Venice Biennale in 1922. A first phase of the contemporary project took place in Venice in May this year.
There are two Lagos locations to distinguish. The organisers named the National Museum in Onikan as the starting point for Nigerian artist Jelili Atiku’s work Eyes No Dey Forget Wetin Heart See, scheduled for 4 November. His planned route took in Military Street and King George V Road before a return to the museum. Those details describe the programme the organisers issued.
The conversation on Saturday has a different address. Decolonizing the Archive Through Performance is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at CCA Lagos, 9 McEwen Street, Yaba. The foundation lists Atiku alongside participants including artist Taiwo Aiyedogbon and researcher and filmmaker Jumoke Sanwo. It describes the event as a public discussion.
One distinction in the programme is between an object and the knowledge that travels with it. Returning a sculpture raises questions about where it should be kept. Accounting for what it means can also require listening to people whose histories did not make it onto an exhibition label. The organisers propose to explore that second question through performance and conversation.
What it means for you. If you want to hear the speakers, use the Yaba address and Saturday morning time. The announcement describes a discussion about memory, collecting and restitution. It does not announce a display in Lagos of the 33 sculptures shown in Venice a century ago.