LIMCAF acquires another record in art development

•••Takes 12 winners to 2020 Dak’Art Biennale

Angels among gods by Victor Olaoye

By Japhet Davidson

ONE of the events that shaped the art space in Nigeria in 2019 was the Life in My City Art Festival (LIMCAF), an annual art festival that brings people from all parts of the country to the coal city state.

The 2019 edition might have come and gone with winners in various categories carting home their cash monies and certificates. 

But one special feature of the festival which is arguably the longest running art festival in Nigeria is that twelve young winners six winners that emerged at the 2019 Award Night including six winners from 2018 will be at Dak’art Senegal in 2020 solely sponsored by LIMCAF’s Patron, the Ghana-born Emeritus Professor El Anatsui, formally of the University of Nigeria Nsukka.

By this, LIMCAF sets another record in the history of contemporary art development in Nigeria adding to the existing record of being the first private sector initiative to empower young artists beyond prize money through sponsorship to the Dak’Art Biennale in Senegal.

The Dakar Biennale (or DAK’ART) is undoubtedly the most famous of all African based biennials.

Since 1990, the Dak’Art has been a platform for contemporary art with cultural roots in Africa and it is the dream of many African artists to be there. 

Though, many of them especially the established ones had found their way to the festival, it is not so for the upcoming ones. And these, the festival has provided for its winners as part of its mission of exposing young artists to the international community.

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As the 2020 Dakar Biennale draws closer, six winners led by the overall winner, Victor Olaoye, (Angels among gods), and other category winners, Samson Maduabuchi Ejiofor ,with “Headlines” that won the Best Sculpture/Installation/Ceramics), Folashade Rashidat Fagorusi (winner of the Best Textile Art category with the work, “Hello”) and Toritseju Favour Clarke (who won the Best Graphics/ Multimedia/Digital Art prize category with the work, “Inverse”).

 

Others are Doris Onyinye Chukwuma, whose work “She Craves” won her the Justice Aniagolu Prize for Originality, and Emmanuel Dare Idowu, who won the Dr Pius Okigbo Prize for Technical Proficiency with his work “Ecstasy Within”.