During a trip to Lagos in 2015, Karl Ohiri noticed something alarming. The British-Nigerian artist observed how long-term photography studios in the city destroyed their archives, sometimes in intentional while they got or moved the city in quieter village situations. And when a generation of photographers shifted to digital methods, the film literally started to disappear.
Ohiri was moved to remedy this phenomenon, so he saved relationships with local photographers and began to acquire endangered negatives “in an attempt to ensure that this precious cultural heritage was not lost in time,” he says in a statement. The Lagos Studio Archives Project was born.
“The most important objectives of the initiative are the collection, retention and presentation of the images of a generation of photographers who have recorded the style, humor and ambitions of everyday Lagosians,” says a statement. The mission revolves around the attention of other hidden stories in one of the greatest hubs in Africa, “while the dialogues about West African photography, culture and the inheritances of the Diaspora are expanding further.”
Ohiri, together with his partner, the Finnish-British artist Riikka Kassinen, regards Lagos Studio Archives as a means to preserve and present the wealth of history, culture, style and daily life in the former capital of Nigeria. Formally organized in 2016, the Archive has developed international images and exhibited at locations such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and South London Gallery
“The project was initiated from a growing concern that an emptiness would be created on a long enough timeline where large parts of Lagosian history would be lost and cannot be picked up,” say Ohiri and Kassinen. “This vacuum can lead to gaps in the representation within the regular Nigerian culture that could have serious consequences for current and future generations of Nigerians who try to gain a deeper insight into their heritage and culture.”
To date, the archive houses are negatives that are stored from more than twenty studios, consisting of thousands of images. “Through conversations with
Photographers from the analog era have focused on dialogues that investigate the importance of preserving photographic archives as an integral part of shaping collective identity, ”say the artists.
Currently located in the individual practices of Helsinki, Ohiri and Kassinen, explore relationships between experienced experiences within contemporary society and socially involved dialogues around heritage and culture. While the pair develops images in the collection, different series and themes are organically emerging.
The color images shown here are part of an initiative entitled Archive to be, who focuses on deteriorated negatives, mainly from studio portraits. As a result of moisture, mold, warmth and other elements, the photos develop with psychedelic colors, dissolved emulsion and empty areas.
“By reviving these images from negatives and representing them in their new context, the works speak of the sad condition of some of the negatives,” says the duo. “However, it also speaks of a certain beauty that can be found in decline that expresses the passage of time and the unpredictable life of images.”
Another work focuses on a man-and-female team that ran Abi Marokco photos, who operated between the 1970s and 2006. The studio laid a wide range of fashionable portraits in black and white that celebrate countless almost most visual stories from Lagos around the 21st century.
Ohiri and Kassinen describe the archive as a cross between a project run by the artist and a social entity, centered around the “idea of collective responsibility in the preservation of heritage and culture as a form of activism that starts with the individual.” Discover a lot more InstagramWhere you can follow updates about exhibitions, newly developed photos and an upcoming book aimed at the work of ABI Morocco photos. (Via Wage))
