Essay · October 2022
Removing Barriers, Elevating Practices
In 'Removing Barriers, Elevating Practices,' architect and curator Papa Omotayo traces a personal and civic map of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA), founded in 2007 by the late curator Bisi Silva. Moving between memory, architecture and institutional history, he reads the building on McEwen Street as a deliberate civic gesture, a suspended, permeable space in Yaba that made room for artists, writers, curators and audiences to develop new languages on their own terms. The essay maps the CCA's programmes, exhibitions and mentorships, and the wider ecosystem they seeded: fairs, foundations, festivals and independent spaces across Lagos and the continent. Omotayo argues that meaningful cultural infrastructure works by lowering the barriers to entry while raising the seriousness of practice, a quiet, patient elevation of what art can do here.
By Papa Omotayo · Published on e-flux Architecture
Summary
In 'Removing Barriers, Elevating Practices,' architect and curator Papa Omotayo traces a personal and civic map of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA), founded in 2007 by the late curator Bisi Silva. Moving between memory, architecture and institutional history, he reads the building on McEwen Street as a deliberate civic gesture, a suspended, permeable space in Yaba that made room for artists, writers, curators and audiences to develop new languages on their own terms. The essay maps the CCA's programmes, exhibitions and mentorships, and the wider ecosystem they seeded: fairs, foundations, festivals and independent spaces across Lagos and the continent. Omotayo argues that meaningful cultural infrastructure works by lowering the barriers to entry while raising the seriousness of practice, a quiet, patient elevation of what art can do here.
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