At LagosPhoto, 50 Artists Rally on Theme of Incarceration

Yinka Olatunbosun

The African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) has revealed plans for the 15th edition of LagosPhoto Festival, Nigeria’s foremost international photography festival, with a thought-provoking theme, “Incarceration.”

Running from October 25 to November 29, 2025, this year’s edition marks a new era for the festival as it transitions from an annual event into a biennial format introducing deeper curatorial engagement, extended collaborations, and wider regional participation.

The 2025 edition will unfold across multiple venues in Lagos including the African Artists’ Foundation, Nahous Gallery, Didi Museum, Freedom Park, and Alliance Française and in Ibadan at New Culture Studio.

Featuring works by about 50 artists and collectives from across Africa and beyond, the festival examines the visible and invisible architectures of captivity that shape human experience today, whether physical, psychological, ideological, or spiritual.

Curated by Courage Dzidula Kpodo, Robin Riskin, Maria Pia Bernadoni, and Kadara Enyeasi, and directed by Azu Nwagbogu, founder and director of AAF, the exhibition investigates how photography can interrogate systems of control while reclaiming visibility and narratives of freedom.

According to the curatorial statement, “The festival calls on audiences to examine the many forms of incarceration imposed by the self or others—that continue to threaten subjugated peoples in their efforts to shape their futures. It is an invitation to explore pathways toward freedom, and how images can enact and reimagine liberation.”

This year’s edition embraces diverse media beyond photography, spanning film, performance, sound, installation, textiles, and archival material. It continues AAF’s longstanding commitment to expanding the definition of lens-based art in Africa.

Lead curator Courage Dzidula Kpodo explained that this year’s edition introduced a more democratic selection process through an open call for submissions—allowing artists from around the world to participate.

“This year was quite different,” Kpodo said. “We put out an open call, so even someone in a remote corner of Asia could send in an application. Through this, we discovered remarkable works we might never have found otherwise.”

One such discovery is Johis Alarcon, an artist of Andean and African descent from Ecuador, whose work explores the overlooked history of African enslaved descendants in South America.

Kpodo noted that about 50 artists including collectives will be featured this year, with works spanning a wide range of media, from photography to performance. The exhibitions are organised across thematic clusters that address identity, gender, violence, and archival memory.

“At AAF, we explore how incarceration can even be self-inflicted, how individuals, shaped by past traumas, may internalise confinement,” he explained. “At Didi Museum, the works deal more with gender, violence, and archival research, while the Ibadan section focuses on architecture and the afterlife.”

Curator Maria Pia Bernadoni reflected on the festival’s intellectual evolution, linking Incarceration to ongoing conversations about mobility, borders, and human limitation. “Every edition grows from reflections on what’s happening around us,” she said. “In 2019, we explored Passports and the limitations imposed by nationality. Incarceration continues that thought, how borders, prisons, technology, and even social media shape our freedoms and our minds.”

The choice of venues reflects the festival’s dialogue between history and space. The reopening of the AAF space after two years, alongside exhibitions at Nahous Gallery (housed within the historic Federal Palace complex where Nigeria’s independence was declared), Didi Museum (Nigeria’s first private museum), and Freedom Park (formerly a colonial prison), provides a layered backdrop for artistic engagement.

In Ibadan, the New Culture Studio, designed by Demas Nwoko in 1970, hosts installations that engage with architecture and the metaphysics of confinement.

Sponsors such as National Geographic, Canon, Open Society Foundations, and Nahous Gallery, alongside local partners like Kòbọmọjẹ́ Artist Residency (K-AiR) and Wunika Mukan Gallery, are supporting the festival’s expansive programming.