Tag Archives: Lagos

Events | TEN CITIES

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Ten Cities, is a global and culturally revelatory project that is documenting the social practice of going clubbing. It is the brainchild of Goethe-Institut Kenya in partnership with Adaptr and C/O Berlin. The project spans two continents, 10 countries and three disciplines (music, photography and writing).

The cities involved are Berlin, Bristol, Johannesburg, Cairo, Kiev, Lagos, Lisbon, Luanda, Nairobi and Naples. The criteria set down by the project: cities with highly developed club cultures with outstanding musicians, cities with specific local forms of music and characteristics in terms of urban development, or home to well established subcultures and subaltern public spheres and voices. About 50 DJs, producers and musicians are teamed up therefore enabling them to produce music together and exchange their knowledge about the club scenes in their countries.

The European guys are not teaching anything to the African colleagues. That would be ridiculous. The bridges are built by producing music together. The symmetrical and equal exchange is crucial here. — Johannes Hossfeld, Director of Goethe Institut Kenya

As a culture, clubbing is one of the most dynamic cultural forms worldwide with regards to space and the public sphere. It is also a space for experimenting with identities and lifestyles. Musicians today keep in touch with global pop culture viathe Internet which in turn, inspires local creativity and finds its way back into the Western world. However this Eurocentric attitude, often leads to a lack in both the appreciation of the African cultures within which all western styles of club music have their roots, and in the physical exchange between musicians and activists between the two continents. The Ten Cities project answers these concerns through a combination of music production, photography, and interdisciplinary research.

TEN-CITIES-DJeff,DJSatelite,LucioAquilina,MarcoMessina

TEN CITIES Luanda – DJeff, DJSatelite, LucioAquilina, MarcoMessina

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TEN CITIES Luanda – Concert Luanda

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TEN CITIES Luanda – MC Sacerdote

A research project comprising of 23 researchers will use the perspective of club cultures to explore and investigate the term of the public sphere. They will work on essays and studies about those partly unknown music scenes and their sub cultures; ten photographers will capture the same on an artistic level.

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Escape to New Lagos, 2081 A.D.

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Idumoto Market
A city so crowded that it is impossible for one to find himself without a mirror and some purposeful soul-searching. Like a modern day Atlantis, New Lagos became an oasis in a desert of global despondence. On top of the bomb-blast rubble, and in the wake of the political pariahs’ exile, its people dared to build something beautiful…and they dared to build it so high, the whole world would see it and stare.

New Makoko Village
Once, the fishermen of Makoko village would feed their families with what their hands were able to pull from the water at dawn. They built homes on top of the water; an African Venice created from sheer resolve and necessity. It was within one of these dark recesses that a tailor desperately hoping to keep his business open took in an unlikely apprentice. A young boy who would later become the man that they all whispered about.

Victoria Island
On the day of the Great Crude Explosion, the ground parted, erupting a rich blackness that crept over the landscape. Barefoot children whose parents hadn’t been able to afford shoes found themselves ankle deep in more wealth than any could have conceived. Far away, in foreign boardrooms, fattened oil executives whispered amongst themselves. This was a land of a hundred dialects, but there would be no Babel. The people spoke in one voice, and they spoke of freedom. New Lagos was born.

Ikoyi
Later, few remembered what his real name was; or what he actually looked like.  There are few accurate accounts of his sacrifice. However he came to his end, all readily conceded that it was his end that ushered Lagos, and ultimately Nigeria, to its new beginning.
When they spoke of hope, the future, or merely spoke of a child with too much ambition for his size, they would speak fondly of him: IkiréJones.

What a pleasure it was to find these incredible images on one of our favourite blogs AfroFuturist Affair.

Escape to New Lagos is a collaboration between Vigilism (Lekan Jeyifous, a Nigerian-born, Brooklyn-based architect, artist and designer) and menswear designer Wale Oyejide. This set of illustrated scenes are part of a fashion campaign for Oyejide’s Ikiré Jones Menswear line. Oyejide is also a musician and a lawyer by profession.
Jeyifous describes it as a ” perfect opportunity to further extend the boundaries of Architectural Representation and (his) interest in exploring new aesthetic vocabularies.”

Wale Oyejide wearing the Black Danté jacket by Ikiré Jones

Wale Oyejide wearing the Black Danté jacket by Ikiré Jones

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