The programming will expand across four venues in Lagos and Ibadan, presenting a mix of solo and collaborative exhibitions, institutional showcases, screenings, and artist talks.
By Abioye Damilare Samson
The African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) has announced the inaugural edition of the LagosPhoto Biennial, scheduled to take place from October 25 to November 29, 2025. After fifteen years of running as an annual festival, this transition marks a new chapter for LagosPhoto, expanding its scope to allow for deeper artistic reflection, diverse programming, and broader cultural impact.
Held under the theme “Incarceration”, the 2025 edition will explore the visible and invisible forms of confinement, physical, psychological, ideological, and spiritual, that shape the lives and imaginations of subjugated peoples. The Biennial aims to question how photography can both sustain and dismantle carceral systems, inviting artists to reimagine freedom through visual, sonic, and performative expression.
The programming will expand across four venues in Lagos and Ibadan, presenting a mix of solo and collaborative exhibitions, institutional showcases, screenings, and artist talks. Notably, LagosPhoto’s reach extends beyond Lagos for the first time, with Ibadan’s New Culture Studio, designed by Demas Nwoko in 1970, activated for works that interrogate the city’s urban and architectural dimensions of incarceration.
Participating artists span the African continent and its diaspora, offering diverse interpretations of the carceral condition. Nigerian artist Ayobami Ogungbe presents woven works imagining the emotional textures of displacement, while Geremew Tigabu’s ghostly landscapes trace the lingering effects of conflict. Cesar Dezfuli and Stefan Ruiz document the navigation of border systems through portraiture, while Yagazie Emezi and Nuotama Bodomo reinterpret ethnographic traditions through ancestral crafts and Afro-indigenous storytelling. Other artists, including Shirin Neshat and Sharbendu De, delve into the psychological and ecological consequences of confinement.
Sponsored by the Ministry of Art and Tourism, National Geographic, Canon, Open Society Foundations, and Nahous Gallery, LagosPhoto 2025 is supported locally by Kòbọmọjẹ́ Artist Residency (K-AiR), Madhouse, and Wunika Mukan Gallery.
Founded in 2010, LagosPhoto remains Nigeria’s first international festival dedicated to photography, building a legacy of exhibitions, workshops, and outdoor installations that unite local and global artists. Its evolution into a biennial marks a milestone for the AAF and also a renewed commitment to photography’s power as a tool for reflection, resistance, and reimagination.