Traces of Ecstasy is a pavilion and exhibition project that will premiere at the forthcoming fourth edition of the Lagos Biennial in February 2024. Guided by the theme of refuge, this biennial edition will be held in Tafawa Balewa Square—a site in central Lagos, named after Nigeria’s first prime minister, that hosted the country’s independence ceremonies in 1960. Traces of Ecstasy critically responds to the charged historical residues of this space, taking its constitutive role in postcolonial nation-building as a point of departure.
The second, reimagined iteration of Traces of Ecstasy at the ICA continues the Lagos pavilion’s aims to unsettle the colonial power structures that maintain and reproduce the ideological dominance of the nation-state in post/neocolonial Africa. Providing a space for critique, repair, and freedom-dreaming, it features artists from the African continent and its diasporas, such as Nolan Oswald Dennis, Evan Ifekoya, Raymond Pinto, Temitayo Shonibare, and Adeju Thompson. The exhibition presents works spanning sculpture, installation, video, sound, drawing, textile, performance, and digital art, in addition to a reading room and a symposium.
The symposium gathers artists, writers, and scholars who have been instrumental in building the theoretical architecture of Traces of Ecstasy. Their presentations and discussions will explore a variety of relevant themes such as the fraught relationship between colonial modernity and African indigeneity; the pitfalls of postcolonial statecraft; the intersections of critical African studies and queer and feminist theory; and the affinities between African metaphysical schemes and digital technologies. Together, these presentations elaborate Traces of Ecstasy’s hopes to illuminate alternative, anarchic forms of African collectivity for the twenty-first century.
Confirmed speakers to the symposium currently include: Kwame Edwin Otu, Nkiru Nzegwu, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Nkhensani Mkhari, and Kevin Okoth. The symposium will conclude with a performance by Raymond Pinto.