CLOSE LOOKS: "LAGOS PARADOX 2"
Click on the arrow below to listen to an audio description of the featured work. Click on the transcript button to read the description.
This photograph by Akintunde Akinleye shows a street in Lagos, Nigeria. Towards the bottom left of the twelve-by-sixteen-inch frame, there are uneven cement blocks arranged as a sidewalk which come to a stop in front of a wide road. Cutting across the middle of the image, the road opens into a T-shaped junction, the left side of which is out of view. Discarded plastic sachets and bottles of water are littered evenly around the frame.
In the foreground of the image, two overlapping signs are affixed to a post that extends beyond the top of the image. The larger sign has text that reads “NO TRADING NO HAWKING” below a silhouetted figure inside a red circle with a diagonal line. The smaller sign on top reads “NO TRADING.” The signs are mounted a few feet above a pile of materials gathered around the bottom of the post. A strip of wood, a bright yellow container wrapped in duct tape, and a green wire coil upwards towards the bare lightbulb that hangs even with the signs.
The wooden boxes on the ground towards the bottom right of the frame situate us. One reads “IBADAN IWO RD.” and the other, flipped upside down below the first box, reads “IBADAN/MOLETE CHALLENGE/” with the last few characters obscured. At first, it appears that there is no one in the photograph, but with time, figures scattered around the frame come into view. Near the upper right corner of the image, three men pictured side by side fill a teal banner blown backwards by the wind. Another figure smiles on a poster just above the overpass that cuts across the upper part of the frame, his face beside a red logo too blurry to be legible. A man riding a bike on the street beneath him is a blur, a fraction of a second away from remaining outside the frame.
In front of the overpass that cuts through the background of the photograph, a bare tree stands with its trunk partially blocked by two yellow vans. The vans are parked behind wooden shelves collected near the edge of the road. White high-rise buildings anchor the left and right edges of the image, with details blurred in contrast to the sharpness of the foreground.
The Conoil logo — six blue-rimmed white droplets arranged in a circular shape — draws your eye back to the center of the image and marks evidence of a petrol station in close proximity.
I see vulnerability, hustle, resistance, and creativity in a typical urban center like Lagos, Nigeria. The yellow buses, popularly known as “Danfo,” are the common means of transportation and it emerged in the 1970s. The drivers are known to be energetic and impatient bus drivers, yet very hardworking as they can work round the clock. A Danfo bus can represent the hustling and bustling nature of Lagos as a metropolitan center. They are the cheapest and most affordable means of commuting in Lagos. Significantly, while in transit, the bus is known to be a medium through which commuters transmit ideas about their daily lives. Commuters share knowledge about politics, governance, and trends in Nigeria.
The image also captures how Nigerians show creativity and repurpose items. Specifically, what struck me is the wheel rim, which is most likely from a vehicle tire (the iron metal used to support the signpost). Nigerians are innovative in this way by repurposing items such as iron for other uses, and this draws attention to a growing informal industry in Nigeria known as “Condemn Condemn.” This group of people recycles items such as iron or metals that are no longer useful in large quantities and resells them to recycling companies. These companies refurbish these irons into reusable items such as utensils and other finished goods. Condemn Condemn finds metals or iron like wheel rims and resells them to make a living. I see how Nigerians can show creativity in disposable resources to serve another useful purpose.
The voices of vulnerability loom large in the image, particularly women. I see women strive to ensure that they can cater to their families despite stringent policies and economic hardship. Lagos is a populated city and a lucrative center for business, but not everyone has equal access to opportunities. Some women have carved out business ideas to sell consumable items on the busy streets of Lagos. Most of these women may have a family and even children-women have resorted to hawking to make ends meet. The dreams of these women mostly center around the desire to provide a good life or access to education for their kins. Yet, government policies set to impose stringent rules on women to stop hawking in Lagos. This shows that despite the economic conditions, women have sought alternative means to make ends meet. Yet they remain a target in an urban center where they only want to make a living. Women continue to resist governmental policies to support their families.
- Temitayo Olukayode is a second PhD student in history. Her research focuses on disasters in African history during the 20th century. Ayodeji Adegbite is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, His research focuses on the history of medicine and science in colonial and postcolonial Africa.
Akintunde Akinleye, Nigerian, born 1971, Lagos Paradox 2, 2011, chromogenic print, image: 11 15/16 x 16 in. (30.4 x 40.6 cm), sheet: 11 15/16 x 16 in. (30.4 x 40.6 cm). Ackland Fund, 2013.26.1. © 2011 Akintunde Akinleye.
In looking at this image, I find myself drawn to the title of this work: Lagos Paradox 2. A paradox — a statement, occurrence, person, or place — appears unlike what it truly is. There is an element of surprise, unexpectedness, and reorientation. Searching for the paradox here, my eyes settle on several things. First, the signs in the left foreground of the photo — both prohibit hawking. Moving rightward, my eyes meet two vans that are unmoving and empty, front bumpers facing each other from either side of the street. From there, I zoom out to consider the photo through the lens of color — bright yellows and red emerge amidst varying shades of white, gray, and brown. Then, the roads. Empty of movement save for a man on a bike a moment away from exiting the left side of the frame, this is Lagos, one of the largest urban geographies in West Africa. As a geographer attuned to how unjust histories shape our present, I’m captivated by what resides outside the frame, or what might be in it but remain unseen. As everywhere, the histories that shape a place are visible always if only we know to look for them.
- Fowota Mortoo is the 2024-2025 Graduate Fellow in Museum Practice at the Ackland and a PhD student in Geography at UNC Chapel Hill.
Can you hear a city via a photograph? This image presents a paradox of sound.
On the one hand, we see remnants of a busy and bustling city street: signs discouraging informal trade hang from the street post, discarded items scatter across the ground, tired buses seem to take rest, and high-rises emerge from the background — all reminders of a chaotic street corner. Yet, on the other hand, the items left behind are all that populate this image. Missing are the people who would have contributed to the commotion of the scene, there is eerie silence in broad daylight. All of this leaves us as viewers to question: where are all the people who made this a place?
- Carlee S. Forbes earned her PhD in Art History at UNC Chapel Hill and was a former intern at the Ackland Art Museum. She is now the Associate Curator of African and Oceanic Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
- Describe the elements of this photograph that first drew your attention. What visual strategies did the artist use to bring your eye to these specific places? Think of the effects of line, shape, and color in this image.
- This photograph was captured when the streets were almost entirely absent of people — it may have been taken on an election day when travel by vehicle is prohibited, or on a day when Lagos officials mandated the closure of all streets for cleaning. Looking closely, where do you see visual clues that people have used or interacted with this space? How might the tone of this photograph be different if it had been captured on a day when the street was filled with people?
- Signs with text and images populate this scene captured by Akintunde Akinleye. What do these signs tell you about the area? What other visual elements included in the photograph give you a sense of place?
- Photographers’ work includes making decisions about what to include and what to exclude within the scope of an image. Think about what kind of urban scene you would photograph. What would you include in the frame, and what would you leave out?
- This artwork will be on view at the Ackland in Gallery 12 (Art Since 1950) from November 15, 2024 through February 9, 2025.
- Learn more about Lagos Paradox 2 in the Ackland’s About the Art guide.
- Read more about photojournalist Akintunde Akinleye in his Reuters profile.
- Looking closely at this photograph, you may notice the Conoil sign in the background. Marketing themselves as the first and largest indigenous oil company in Nigeria, Conoil dates back to 1927, predating the arrival of Royal Dutch/Shell. Read more in The Guardian article titled “The village that stood up to big oil – and won.”
- Watch the recording of a conversation hosted by the Weisman Art Museum with Akintunde Akinleye and Carol Magee, a professor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Art and Art History department and curator of the exhibition Urban Cadence: Street Scenes from Lagos and Johannesburg.
- Read more about the exhibition Urban Cadence: Street Scenes from Lagos and Johannesburg, which featured the work of Akintunde Akinleye.