By Japhet Alakam

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, an independent non-profit visual art organisation that provides a platform for the development, presentation, and discussion of contemporary visual art and culture is 10. And as part of activities marking the year-long public programmes opened its 2018 session with an artist talk featuring Sao Paulo based photographer Tatewaki Nio, as the first in a series.

One of the images by Tatewaki Nio

Nio during the talk presented images that gave an insight into his current project,Sao Paulo – Lagos Connection a photographic work on the cities of Western Nigeria and Brazil and their historical and contemporary relations. Some of the images were taken in Brazil, while some were taken in Nigeria and Republic of Benin. The images include that of architecture, structures, portraits and personalities, some of which were taken in Nigeria and sent to their families in Brazil.

Sao Paulo – Lagos Connec-tion is an artistic and documentary approach that engages the multidimensional relationship between Brazil and West Africa (Nigeria and Republic of Benin) highlighting the historic and contemporary displacement of people from both regions and capturing the dynamism of the megacities of Sao Paulo and Lagos.

The project visualizes the history of Brazilian returnees to West Africa, family links of actual West African residents in Sao Paulo and the urban aspect of the largest city of West Africa photographed by the point of view of a photographer resident in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The project is one of the winners of ZUM/IMS Grant of Photography 2017 from Instituto Moreira Salles.