ArtHouse Forum for Tam Fiofori at 80

The Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) & iREP International Documentary Film Forum will hold an ArtHouse Forum to celebrate the essence(s) of Tam Fiofori, as he becomes an Octogenarian.

Themed, The 4-Some dimension to an art Icon… Journalist. Photographer. Filmmaker. Art Manager, the event comes up on Friday, June 17, 2022, at the Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos and features conversations, tributes, film screenings and concerts. Time is 4:00 pm.

Fiofori

Travelling extensively since the 1960s, Fiofori became an associate in the US of Sun Ra.

According to the Pan African Space Station, “Uncle Tam later invited Sun Ra to Lagos for FESTAC 77, and took him to the Kalakuta Republic…” 

Fiofori was the first New Music/Electronic Music Editor for DownBeat, wrote for much other art and literary publications in the US and Europe — among them International Times and Change magazine — and has been credited with being “largely responsible for bringing underground black creativity to the American national consciousness in those heady days of the 1970s”. His writing has been regularly published over the years in a range of Nigerian outlets, including NEXT newspaper, and the blog Shèkèrè.

He was a film consultant to Rivers State Council for Arts and Culture, the director of Rivers State Documentary Series, and consultant/scriptwriter to NTA Network on Documentaries. He was also the founding executive of the Photographers’ Association of Nigeria (PAN).

His work has been shown in Africa, Europe and the US, including Odum and Water Masquerades (1974), screened at FESTAC ‘77, Tampere Film Festival, 10th FESPACO, Ouagadougou, 1987, Pan African Writers’ Association, Accra, Ghana, and 1979: A Peep into History and Culture.

His publications include the “print documentary” A Benin Coronation: Oba Erediauwa (2011).

He is a contributor to the 2018 book African Photographer J. A. Green: Re-imagining the Indigenous and the Colonial (edited by Martha G. Anderson and Lisa Aronson), in a review of which Lindsay Barrett referred to Fiofori as “Nigeria’s iconic photographic genius”.

Among honours Fiofori has received are awards from the Pan African Writers’ Association (PAWA), iRepresent International Documentary Film Festival, and Music in Africa.