LIMCAF Returns as Online Festival,

Announces Jury Members

Life in My City Festival – Nigeria’s longest-running annual festival better known in the art circles as LIMCAF – stages a comeback this year as a mainly online event. Recall that the obtrusion of the COVID-19 pandemic had put its last year’s activities on the block shortly after the organisers had received the entries.

A statement from the organisers disclosed that only 25 winners out of the top-100 competitors will physically attend at the awards night, which will hold on Saturday, November 20 at the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu’s International Conference Centre. This is to ensure a strict adherence of the COVID protocols. As for the other participants, there will be an opportunity for other participants to watch the night’s event unfold on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The event, which will be chaired by the First Bank Nigeria Holdings chairman, Elder U. K. Eke, will also be graced by its traditional patrons, Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe and emeritus Prof El Anatsui, alongside other dignitaries.

This year at the festival, which has become legendary for its resilience, 10 new prizes will be added to the traditional ones, which include the first prize alongside the four other prizes in the different categories of the visual arts as well as the endowed prizes. The new prizes, each of which will be worth not less than N250,000, will be awarded by the Canada-based NGO HITCH.

It is also hoped that more sales of the art festival cum competition’s top entries will be recorded this year through the online exhibition.

Meanwhile, a five-member national jury for the competition has been announced for the competition.

The jury, headed by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka drawing, sculpture and art history lecturer Chijioke Onuora, also includes the North Park University, Chicago (USA) professor of art Nnenna Okore, the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria-based professor of art history and criticism Giles Gambo Duniya, the experimental artist and Port Harcourt-based gallery owner Michael Kpodo and the Abuja-based and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria-trained artist Sor Sen.