Preparations for the 2015 Grand Finale of the Life In My City Art Festival (LIMCAF) enter the homeward stretch with each of the 11 zones completing their local exhibitions and selection of finalists. Indeed, many of the zones have actually dispatched their selections to Enugu where photography of the works is currently holding in preparation for the October 24 outing, the ninth in the series of the yearly art fiesta.

The 11 zones of the festival, in a report of the zonal activities detailed by the Executive Director, Life in My City Art Initiative, Mr. Kevin Ejiofor, are Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, Kaduna, Jos, Benin/Auchi, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Uyo, Calabar, and of course, Enugu. Each zone, according to him, receives entries from its area (mostly from students in the various art schools around), screens them and selects the best, which are then put up in a local exhibition.

At the end of the local exhibition, a local jury, usually made up of art teachers, writers, gallery owners and older practitioners, Ejiofor noted, “is constituted to select the very best works from the zone as finalists to be sent to Enugu for the one week Grand Finale Exhibition every third Saturday in October.”

Naturally, some zones are hotter than others not necessarily in terms of the quality of the works exhibited but sometimes in terms of the number of entries and the in terms of the attention and interest they generate in the local area judged by the number of interested persons that come to the opening and other visitors that view the exhibition subsequently.

With those indices, Abuja, Ibadan, Enugu, Kaduna and Lagos may be said to really stand out.

In the Abuja exhibition, this year, for example, visitors at the opening ceremony ranged from members of the National Assembly to various groups of expatriates including embassy personnel of different countries and quite a good number from the general public.

The highlight of the Abuja exhibition held at Jeff Ajueshi’s now rather outstanding Thought Pyramid Gallery was the announcement of support from the Pius Okigbo Family who have endowed a yet to be named national prize and two other national prize endowments by the proprietor of Thought Pyramid Gallery for the best entries from Abuja and Benin/Auchi zones respectively.

In addition, for the second year in succession, Abuja zone, hosted by the Cultural Affairs Officer of the French Embassy, Jacques Montourcey and Alice O’Reilly of the Institut Francaise has sold more works at the local exhibition than any other zones including Lagos!
And Lagos, known to many as the cultural capital of Nigeria, was host to many an interesting entry this year. Its best prize is endowed by Bisi Silva’s Centre for Contemporary Art and there were 44 entries from 33 young artists competing for that prize and of course any other of the national prizes.

The Lagos zone jury comprised Ato Arinze, a sculptor and potter; Jude Anogwih, art curator and video artist; Ibrahim Sitti, art journalist; and Jordan Ray-Belonwu as well as Ibrahim Sama Tchatchere, the Cultural Affairs Officer at the Alliance Francaise who hosted the proceedings as representative of the Director, Madam Christine Deuve who doubles as Delegate-General of the Alliance in Nigeria.

According to Ray-Belonwu, there were impressive art pieces that made what he describes as “wow statements” … providing some of “the most expressive visuals of life in Lagos.” This is obviously in reference to the aim of the festival, especially in terms of enabling “young people to make meaningful statements about their lived environment.”

The Ibadan zone exhibition attracted many young artists and some prominent art personalities. A prominent artist of the Ibadan Polytechnic, Dr. Ellis Oyekola presided over the Ibadan show. Oyekola expressed delight over the quality of works on display and the concept and objectives of LIMCAF as he announced a prize of N50,000 (fifty thousand naira) for the best work selected from the exhibition in the zone as adjudged by the local jury.

THAT prize announcement was a first for LIMCAF in the Ibadan zone. Dr. Oyekola also announced, “of all the artworks displayed in Ibadan, 15 will be selected and taken to Enugu for the grand finale of the competition.”

The local prize he said, is “just to encourage our artists on the need to keep working hard so that they can get the needed breakthrough,” Deputy Director, Alliance Française, Ibadan, Mr. Nicolas Michelland, who had also once served as the Deputy Director in Enugu spoke of how he was proud that a project that started on a small level some years ago in his office in Enugu, had since become very competitive national event, attracting the attention of artists and art lovers from all over the country.

The Ibadan exhibition eventually featured a selection of 47 artworks from 36 artists from all over Oyo and other South Western states with works spanning all the four categories of visual arts as specifically grouped by the organisers for the competition.

In line with Oyekola’s directive, a total of 15 artworks were selected to feature at the grand finale exhibition in Enugu and Michelland is optimistic that someone from Ibadan would win the overall prize.

As usual, the Enugu zone attracted the highest number of works. At its local exhibition held at the Alliance Francaise, Enugu from August 11 to 18, 2015, there were 84 works selected from 36 artists. This presented quite a headache to the local jury that would determine both the best work in the zone and the twenty or so works to represent the zone at the grand finale exhibition. The good number of entries in Enugu is probably due to the fact that there are so many art schools in the area but very few other outlets for un-established and aspiring artists to showcase their talents as compared to say Lagos, Abuja and Ibadan zones.

At the opening of the Enugu show, the organisers had the pleasure of introducing the new Director of Alliance Française, Olivier Mourginot who expressed his pleasure at the opportunity to work in Nigeria for the first time and enthusiastically commended the LIMCAF project and its support by the French cultural outreach agencies in Nigeria.

He praised the quality of the works on display submitted by young artists who were mostly undergraduates from all parts of the country.
Mourginot appealed for support from the local elite in Enugu and from the big sponsors noting that LIMCAF was capable of positively affecting the economy of Enugu and Nigeria as it grows to become a bigger and bigger art tourism event in this part of the world.

Festival Secretary, Iheanyi Onwuegbucha says the schedule of selected works reaching him from the 11 zones shows that Enugu zone exhibited the highest number of works with 84 on display from 56 artists. Ibadan came second with 52 works exhibited from 36 artists, followed by Lagos: 42 works from 22 artists; Kaduna put 28 works on show from 27 artists; while Abuja’s 33 works came from 24 artists. In Uyo, a total of eight works from five artists were on parade. But the capital city of Akwa Ibom State had once produced the first prize winner. In 2011, Eyo Emem Effiong won the overall prize of N500,000 with his entry titled Save the Child and Save the Nation. In addition, Mrs Mfon Usoro, a prominent Lagos Lawyer and avid art collector, last year, endowed a prize worth N150,000 for the Best Entry from the Calabar/Uyo zones.

Other endowed prizes included Justice Anthony Aniagolu prize for Originality, the Pius Okigbo Prize, the ‘Art Is Everwhere’ prize endowed by Ayo Adewummi, the ‘Best from Enugu’ prize by Vin Martin Ilo and the Enugu State Council for Arts and Culture prize worth N100,000.

LIMCAF’s Art Director, Ayo Adewunmi says the aim of soliciting for more endowments is mainly to ensure that more young artists from all over Nigeria win prizes, in fulfilment of one of the aims of the festival which is to economically empower the youth through art by “creating a platform for them to expose their productions, and either win handsome prizes or sell them to art connoisseurs.”

Every year, since 2007 when the initiative berthed, at least 25 such prize winners including the consolation prize winners are invited to Enugu for the Award Night at LIMCAF’s expense.

This, he says, makes LIMCAF “not only the biggest art event in Nigeria with over 100 new quality artworks by young people from all over Nigeria on show yearly, but also the most impactful in terms of encouraging art appreciation and consumption by the general public nationwide.”

The 2015 grand finale exhibition opens at the Nike Lake Resort Hotel Enugu on Monday, October 19, 2015 and will climax with the Award Night on Saturday, October 24. It is very much hoped by the organisers that His Excellency, Right Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi will grace this year’s occasion, which as usual will feature the royal presence of LIMCAF’s Patron, His Royal Majesty Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, Obi of Onitsha among other royal fathers and invited dignitaries.
And incidentally, the theme for 2015 edition is Beyond All Odds, which invariably, reflects also the bridges that the project had crossed in the last nine years of its existence.

But its choice is premised on the understanding that, “in all spheres of existence, humanity is faced with challenges which severely test the resilience of the human spirit. In confronting these existential issues, man has relied on his ingenuity, resourcefulness, innovative and improvisational abilities, as survivalist modes. For the artist, these attributes can be creatively applied, using the different channels of artistic media, to address issues, as well as experiences that highlight the resilience of the human spirit to adapt to changes; move beyond all odds, and meaningfully appraise the past, positively engage the present and lay a better foundation for tomorrow.”

Any artist who, through his work, is adjudged to have interpreted the theme best will be crowned on October 24, 2015 as the overall prize-winner.