After fifteen years of promoting photography as a means for dialogue and critical thinking, the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) has announced that the LagosPhoto Festival will become a biennial event, with the next edition running from October 25 to November 29, 2025.

This shift represents a new stage of growth, allowing for more in-depth exploration, wider programming, and greater influence. Titled “Incarceration,” the 2025 festival will explore the many visible and hidden forms of confinement—whether imposed by systems or oneself—that continue to limit marginalized communities. It will question how images can reveal, confront, and reimagine structures of imprisonment.

The program will be hosted across four locations in Lagos and Ibadan, featuring solo and group projects, institutional exhibitions, film screenings, and discussions. For the first time, LagosPhoto will expand to Ibadan, highlighting works that engage with the city’s urban and architectural expressions of incarceration.

Incarceration often exists in plain view. The global system of confinement relies on institutions and policies that promise reform but perpetuate control. Beyond physical barriers, imprisonment also appears in psychological, ideological, and spiritual forms—subtle influences that shape our imagination, desires, and understanding of freedom. Photography has historically been part of these systems, used for surveillance, categorization, and justifying power. Yet it has also been a tool of resistance—documenting liberation movements, imagining sovereignty, and celebrating everyday life. Through these dual roles, photography serves as both an instrument of oppression and a means of liberation.

Continuing AAF’s long-standing interest in photography’s expanding role, LagosPhoto will include works beyond traditional photography—such as printed, sculptural, woven, dyed, and performance-based pieces that blend images, sound, text, film, installation, and archives. Artists will examine photography’s function as both a mechanism of control and a pathway to freedom, engaging with themes of trauma, displacement, and renewal.

Artists like Ayobami Ogungbe use woven images to convey the emotional layers of migration, while Geremew Tigabu captures landscapes marked by conflict. Cesar Dezfuli and Stefan Ruiz explore how portraiture interacts with borders and belonging. Yagazie Emezi and Nuotama Bodomo reinterpret ethnographic traditions through indigenous perspectives—Emezi using textiles and rituals to evoke ancestral memory, and Bodomo reshaping film with Afro-indigenous rhythms. Others, such as Shirin Neshat and Sharbendu De, address psychological and environmental disruptions, from reflections on freedom to visions of climate futures.

As the first biennial edition, LagosPhoto 2025 marks a transformative new phase—building on fifteen years of innovation while fostering new conversations about creativity, resistance, and freedom. The new format blends open-call projects with a curated selection, focusing on archival research, intertextual practices, and experimental collections.The proposals span Africa, its diaspora, and global connections, with a strong emphasis on West Africa’s linguistic and cultural ties.

Untitled, 2021. From the series Eye of the Storm, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and AAF.
Geremew Tigabu
Good People, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and AAF.
Khanya Zibaya

Projects explore key themes such as ecology, migration, identity, religion, and architecture, delving into both metaphorical and actual prisons. Exhibitions take place at historic sites of gathering, resistance, and change. In Lagos, the main program is hosted at three locations: the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), which is reopening after two years of renovations; Nahous Gallery, a new space in the historic Federal Palace complex (where Nigeria’s independence was signed and FESTAC ’77 was held); and Freedom Park, a former colonial prison now serving as a public landmark.

Brother’s keeper, 2021. From Point of Return. 36 x 26 inches. Courtesy of the artist and AAF.
Ogungbe Ayobami
Untitled, 2023. From The Fury series. Courtesy of the artist and AAF.
Shirin Neshat
Courtesy of the artist, AAF, and Tender Photos.
Ollie Walker

In Ibadan, the biennial event takes place at the New Culture Studio, designed by Demas Nwoko in 1970, examining urban and architectural aspects of confinement. Other satellite venues include Didi Museum and Alliance Française de Lagos.

LagosPhoto 2025 is supported by the Ministry of Art and Tourism, National Geographic, Canon, Open Society Foundations, and Nahous Gallery, in partnership with local collaborators Kòbọmọjẹ́ Artist Residency (K-AiR), Madhouse, and Wunika Mukan Gallery.

For more details, visit https://www.lagosphotofestival.com/

Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of helpful and clear FAQs about the first LagosPhoto Biennial and its themes

General Information

Q1 What is the LagosPhoto Festival
A Its a major international photography festival held in Lagos Nigeria Its the first and largest of its kind in Africa dedicated to showcasing contemporary photography and visual storytelling

Q2 What is the theme of this specific Biennial
A The theme for this first Biennial explores imprisonment and the power of photography as a form of protest

Q3 What does Biennial mean
A A Biennial is a largescale art exhibition that happens every two years This was the first one for LagosPhoto

Understanding the Themes

Q4 How can photography be a form of protest
A Photography can protest by exposing injustice documenting human rights abuses challenging powerful narratives and giving a voice to the voiceless A single powerful image can mobilize public opinion and demand change

Q5 What kinds of imprisonment does the theme refer to
A Its not just about physical jails It can refer to social imprisonment political imprisonment or even mental imprisonment

Q6 Can you give an example of photography used as protest
A Yes Historical examples include photos of the Civil Rights Movement in the US or the antiapartheid struggle in South Africa This Biennial likely featured contemporary African artists using photography to protest modern forms of imprisonment

For Visitors Art Enthusiasts

Q7 Where and when did this Biennial take place
A The first LagosPhoto Biennial was held in Lagos Nigeria You would need to check the official LagosPhoto website or archives for the specific dates and locations of that inaugural event

Q8 Who were the artists featured
A The festival typically features a mix of established and emerging African artists and international photographers whose work aligns with the theme The exact list would be in the original Biennials program

Q9 Is the festival only for people who are experts in art
A Not at all The festival is for everyone The power of photography is that its a visual