Images are the most important language of communication-Azu

Azu Nwagbogu is the founder and director of the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non-profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria that is dedicated to the promotion and development of contemporary African arts and artists. The collector and curator is also the founder of numerous other projects supporting and celebrating African arts and photography, including the National Art Competition, LagosPhoto Festival and Art Base Africa, which is a new virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary African Art and diaspora. In gearing up for the 2017 edition of the LagosPhoto Festival, Azu Nwagbogu in this chat with MUTIAT ALLI, tells us more about the coming event, significance, financing amongst others

Let get to meet you?
My name is Azu Nwagbogu and I’m the director and curator of Lagos Photo Festival

What is the LagosPhoto festival all about?
Lagos Photo is an annual international festival of photography that brings artists visual story tellers and photographers from all over the world in a month long series of exhibitions workshops artists’ talks and presentations.

It is one of the leading art festivals on the continent and the only one in West Africa.

What new ideas are you bringing on board of the 8th edition?
This is a special edition and through our theme: Regimes of Truth we explore contemporary issues and also reflect on historical events like

Festac — it’s been 40 years since this ground breaking festival and Biafra — it’s been 50 years since the announcement of the separatist state that lead to the civil war that changed forever the way the world viewed humanity in Africa.

For this we are collaborating with Magnum Photos to show work from that period. It’s been 40 years since 1000 soldiers invaded and burnt Fela Kuti’s home to the ground.

Spanish artist Cristina de Middel recreates and retells this sad shameful event in a very creative and Performative way.

We also debut several new never before seen works like the Black Pope by Samuel Fosso, No Touch Am by Osborne Macharia for which we sponsored and collaborated on with the artist.

We are also super pleased to announce a creative partnership with National Geographic.

Through this partnership we will reward one outstanding talent with a $10 000 grant and also the massive opportunity to become a National Geographic Photographer.

What then is the significance of the festival?
It is important because we need to tell and control the narratives that relate to us as Africans if not others will hijack and shape our destiny thereby.

Images are the most important language of communication today and we must shape a positive destiny through it.

Why the focus on contemporary photography?
It’s important to look back but more important to use the knowledge from the past to visualize a newer better future and this is something that contemporary photographers are doing today.

With the theme of this year ‘Regimes of truth’ what do you tend to achieve with that?
Photography is an art form that first flattered itself as a science and with that the weight and burden of being an arbiter of Truth. We want to explore these truths in a post truth society.

As a non-profit organization, AAF: how have you been coping with funding?
We are fortunate to have the support of several who value our contribution to society none more so than Ford Foundation and all of our partners and sponsors.

With respect to the past years event, how will describe the success story so far?
I’ll let others who have participated describe but the feedback we continuously receive is overwhelming and our continued growth despite challenges to testament to this.

With the growing rate of photography as an art in Lagos and the county at large, how will you rate the photography spirit generally?
We are glad to contribute our part to this community and it is very important to build and support this growing community of visual story tellers. We need more unity but it’s going rather well.

In what way will this coming event further boast the economy?
There is no doubt that the creative industry is our most buoyant export today. If we did not have this the country would be in ruins.

We are blessed with do much talent and our part is to do all we can to nurture and provide opportunities for our creatives.