October 24, 2025
Most of the photographic artifacts had been discarded, destroyed, or just left to deteriorate.
The Lagos Studio Archives challenge is working to salvage hundreds of photographic negatives from analog portrait studios throughout Lagos. Most of the artifacts had been discarded, destroyed, or left to deteriorate. Initiated by British-Nigerian artist Karl Ohiri and British artist-curator Riikka Kassinen, the archive seeks to reclaim visible data of on a regular basis life in Lagos from roughly the Nineteen Seventies till the early 2000s.
The archive now consists of supplies from over 20 studios. The portrait collection showcases Lagosians in vogue, household groupings, celebrations, and on a regular basis moments. The gathering is described as capturing the model, humor, and aspirations of on a regular basis Lagosians in a number of a long time.
“I believe within the pictures you’ll be able to see there was an angle of optimism, a carefree feeling amongst many,” Kassinen instructed WePresent.
Ohiri agrees, “You possibly can see that there’s optimism within the air on this transitional interval; western applied sciences and clothes are coming in, there’s ’70s youth tradition, vogue. It was a very vital second in Nigeria’s historical past.”
Ohiri and Kassinen say they started after discovering native picture studios disposing of their movie databases as digital strategies took over and studios closed down.
“Studio pictures was very massive in Nigeria within the ’70s—folks needed to document their lives. After I’d ask these photographers if I may see their archives, they’d say they didn’t have them, some mentioned they’d destroyed them. A lot of them had been burning them, others had been leaving them to deteriorate in humid circumstances. Of their eyes the work had been achieved, why retailer all of it?” Ohiri instructed WePresent.
Having rescued and digitized lots of the negatives, the Lagos Studio Archives has curated a number of worldwide exhibitions. The work from one of many studios, Abi Morocco Photographs, operated by John and Funmilayo Abe within the Nineteen Seventies-2000s, was featured in “Abi Morocco Photographs: Spirit of Lagos“ at Autograph Gallery in London.
The crew emphasizes that their intention will not be merely to protect images however to engender a collective duty round pictures, reminiscence, and heritage.
The challenge additionally exposes an urgency of preserving Lagos’ analog archives, that are susceptible to neglect or erasure.
Ohiri emphasised the purpose, stating, “There’s an actual sense of urgency to the work. There are 4 or 5 archives we maintain whose homeowners have handed away since we began the challenge. When that occurs, the entry to context and knowledge is erased.”
The Lagos Studio Archives challenge is important to a bigger discourse about possession and preservation. This concentrate on rescuing marginalized narratives mirrors the continuing reckoning round African artwork and pictures held in Western museums. Simply because the Lagos Studio Archives brings native voices to the forefront, calls are rising louder for British museums and different world establishments to half with their holdings of African cultural artwork. As conversations about restitution and repatriation escalate, the archival work in Lagos serves as a vivid reminder of the breadth of what has been misplaced—and what is perhaps returned.
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