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Imag(in)ing Lagos globally

ABSTRACT This article argues that Lagos, a megacity geographically located in southwestern Nigeria, also exists in other places and spaces. Such a global presence is not insignificant for the circumstances that enable it to transcend its physical locale to operate in the imagination. This article contends that particular artworks centred on the specific urban space – Lagos – but circulating internationally generate meaning between physical places creating a globally imagined Lagos. It does so highlighting work by three Lagosian artists with broad and varied international careers. It analyses Uche Okpa-Iroha’s photographic series Under Bridge Life (2009), Emeka Ogboh and Kristian Kowatsch’s soundwork Oshodi Stock Exchange (2014), and Abraham Oghobase’s photographic series Untitled (2012) for what they reveal about: the movement of people into and about Lagos, the instability that frames Lagosian daily life, the over-crowding of the city, cross-cultural interactions and the formation of networks. Drawing on phenomenological studies of place and Ariella Azoulay’s photographic theories of civil imagination, the essay demonstrates the ways that the pieces considered here offer marked political commentary on the conditions of life in the city itself, and situate Lagos in the larger world, establishing, reaffirming, and reshaping the networks in which we are all entwined.