LagosPhoto Biennial 2025

The inaugural LagosPhoto Biennial transforms Lagos and Ibadan into platforms for reflection and exchange. Curated by Azu Nwagbogu, founder of the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), the 2025 edition unfolds under the theme “Incarceration”, exploring visible and unseen forms of captivity that shape personal, political, and collective life.

Running from 25 October to 29 November 2025, the Biennial spans multiple venues with exhibitions, collaborations, and site-specific projects that question systems of control through contemporary photography and lens-based media. Building on LagosPhoto’s fifteen-year legacy, this new biennial format encourages slower, deeper engagement.

“Incarceration” examines confinement as both external and internal, addressing psychological, ideological, and spiritual conditions alongside physical imprisonment. Photography’s dual role—as an instrument of surveillance and of emancipation—runs through the programme, which includes works by artists such as Ayobami Ogungbe, Geremew Tigabu, Cesar Dezfuli, Stefan Ruiz, Yagazie Emezi, Nuotama Bodomo, Shirin Neshat, and Sharbendu De.

Exhibitions unfold across key venues including the African Artists’ Foundation, Nahous Gallery, Freedom Park, and the New Culture Studio in Ibadan, activating historic sites of gathering and resistance.

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