Africa’s rich cultural heritage can no longer be overlooked or viewed remotely from discriminatory and narrow foreign perspectives.
We as a continent have been able to not only preserve our art, but express our originality through various means and channels such as entertainment, fashion and interior design, extending our creative expressiveness to other cultures.
The African Culture & Design Festival serves as the nexus between our past and our present through the careful selection of relevant and specific objects which together must prove that both are convincingly related.
Themed ‘THIS IS AFRICA’ this festival, being one of a kind, will bring the world to experience Africa in Nigeria through tastefully segmented pavilions namely; Design, Modern and Contemporary Art, Traditional Installation and The Video Installation.
Meet the curators of the African Culture and Design Festival 2017
Titi Ogufere
Curating the Design Pavilion will be one of Nigeria’s most celebrated curators, Titi Ogunfere, President Interior Designers Association of Nigeria (IDAN). This will feature notable works from Malian design maverick Cheick Diallo, the avant-garde pieces of Nigeria’s Damola Rufai as well as several other personalities that continue to redefine interior architecture globally.
Bisi Silva
Modern and Contemporary Arts pavilion will be curated by renowned consultant and director of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Bisi Silva. This segment has a laudable line-up of artists from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal and several others. In partnership with Goethe Institute and VAN Lagos, she will be cataloguing the intricacies of works created by Tobenna Okwuosa, Adjaratou Ouedraogo and Kelani Abass.
Ronke Ashaye
Historical pieces by renowned Traditional Art collector, Femi Akinsanya’s will be the highlight of the Traditional African Art Pavilion. To be curated by articulate museum specialist and former Chairperson, Committee on Inventory of Collections in the National Commission for Museums and Monuments Nigeria, Ronke Ashaye, the pavilion will have over 100 traditional art installations on display that have been carefully preserved for centuries and have been featured in major exhibitions across the globe. The Gelede Headdress Yoruba and Edan Ogboni are only a few of what visitors at the pavilion can look forward to.
Azu Nwagbogu
Founder and Director of the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), Azu Nwagbogu, will be curating the Visual Art Pavilion. His Montages are a combination of rare picturesque, raw truths and realities that have pervaded society and global communities, telling stories that are not easily forgotten.
Coming 40 years after the iconic Festac 77, Nigeria and Africa will once again get the opportunity to showcase the resplendent beauty of Africa’s historical and emerging Art.
