how to photograph lagos 2

lagos is a city where slow and steady wins the race... philosophy is not tolerated. it’s a city where calmness is misinterpreted as sluggishness and weakness. but you cannot blame the people, because in a city (whose population is above twenty million) most of whom have left their known world in the village for the ‘lagos dream’, exhibiting the innate desire of the communal is trivial, considered a waste of time, or as the people would say, ‘there is no time to check time.'

kokowa is a wrestling sport popular in northern nigeria. agile men wrestle while gathered spectators cheer their champions. in 2018, i encountered this sport under obalende bridge. the sport has traveled from the far north to lagos, and the lagos audience is spectacular as they stood still to enjoy a game that they've missed (abandoned in the village) for the lagos dream.

making this project encouraged me to identify traces of communality in spaces that have been bleached colourless; where the liminal has atrophied into the profane, as the people seek to embrace the concept of individualism. in this project, i also found an answer to a foresighted question: 'how does one make lagos to stand still for a portrait.' it is noteworthy that lagos is attentive to theatrics.