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By Toyin Akinosho
15 April 2018   |   4:12 am
Goethe Institut Lagos is discontinuing its hugely popular Literary Crossroads, a series of talks in which Nigerian writers met with colleagues from all over the continent...

National Arts Theatre

Goethe Dumps Literature For Food
Goethe Institut Lagos is discontinuing its hugely popular Literary Crossroads, a series of talks in which Nigerian writers met with colleagues from all over the continent and from the African diaspora. The conversations, over the last two years, featured trends, topics and themes prevalent in contemporary literature. Now it will be replaced by a Food workshop. “This year, the focus is on Food”, Goethe says. ”Food as a connection, as something which binds”. The context is around similarities between the German and Nigerian cuisine. The content is the narrative of food in and through media from writing to photography and video. Unlike Literary Crossroads, a participant cannot just walk into the food programme. It is heavily curated, it will be applied for and there’s a process of accepting participants. “Food Crossroads – Germany meets Nigeria” starts with a workshop and live-cooking session which will be hosted by Nigerian food explorer Ozoz Sokoh and German food blogger Felicitas Then. Goethe says it is “looking for individuals with fresh and unique voices, ready to share their personal expressions and experiences of food as well as collectives interested in sharing their understanding of cultural diffusion and how to discover other cultures through cuisine, telling the world about it in new digital spaces”.  Participants must have an online presence where they share their thoughts about food ‘journalism’, “not necessarily in a conventional way; as long as can demonstrate your interest and passion”, Goethe explains. “You should be interested in the cultural preservation and history of food and you can apply as a collective (a maximum of two people from a group will be allowed to attend). The application deadline is Wednesday April 25. Successful participants will be notified by Wednesday May 2. The programme is on May 11 and 12, 2018”

Nobel Wrangling Has Nothing To Do With Literary Quality
The Nobel Prize for Literature has been caught in the #MeToo ferment. Sara Danius, chair of the committee that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature resigned Thursday, April 12, 2018, in the wake of spreading anger over allegations of sexual abuse. The accusations swirl around Jean-Claude Arnault, husband of Katarina Frostenson, a poet and long-serving member of the Nobel Academy. He has been accused of sexually assaulting 18 women, including female academy members and the wives and daughters of their male colleagues. He is also alleged to have been systematically leaking names of winners of the Nobel Prize for literature. The crisis started in the week of Monday, April 2, after three male members resigned over the academy’s vote not to remove Ms. Frostenson. These Europeans. With the .head of the Nobel Prize Committee For Literature resigning, you would think that something had gone seriously wrong with the process of choosing winners. The academy was founded by King Gustaf III in 1786 to advance Swedish language and literature. It has awarded the literature prize since 1901, after being asked to choose a global laureate annually by the industrialist Alfred Nobel. It was one of five Nobel prizes he created, including for chemistry, physics, medicine and peace. The peace prize is handed out by a Norwegian committee.

A Playwright Returns To The National Theatre
The playwright Stella Oyedepo has been appointed as General Manager of the National Theatre, Lagos, furthering a tradition of assigning playwrights to run the venue. Hers was one of the 23 appointments announced by the Presidency last week. The 64 year old author of The Greatest Gift, Our Wife is Not a Woman, and Brain Has No Gender trained as a linguist, but has had several decades of vocation as a playwright. She is to serve an initial term of four years with effect from 8th April 2018, “in compliance with the Establishment Act, “especially Sections 7 And 8 Of The National Theatre And National Troupe Of Nigeria Act 1991”. With this appointment, the President has separated the leadership of The National Theatre from that of the National Troupe of Nigeria.

Udemba Is the Bus Conductor To Dakar
Emeka Udemba, the Germany based conceptual artist, is the Conductor of the Bus that will convey artists on a road trip from Lagos to Dakar. Put “in professional, art language”, he is the curator of the Molue Mobile Museum of Contemporary Art (MMMoCA). “For the second time in a rown six artists will travel from Lagos to Dakar, this time under the theme, ‘Stretched Terrains’, writes Derin Ajao, programme officer at the Goethe Institut, supporters of the project. The bus commenced its journey on Tuesday, April 10 and will arrive in time for the opening of the 13th Dak’Art – Bienniale of Contemporary Art in May. Udemba started the MMMoCA project in 2004. His curatorial outlook is based on exploring how topography influences not just culture but also impacts the social, the economic and the political, with an emphasis on the experimental. The idea, he argues, is to look beyond a fixed address and offer a chance for contemporary art to be seen and appreciated by different people across locales.. “Art is also about trying to start up a conversation among people… The whole essence of being an artist is the collaboration, and interrogation of other cultures”, Udemba said at the pres conference preceding the trip. Among the artists on tour are Monsuru Alashe, the Nigerian photographer, graphic designer and experimental artist who was also on the 2016 Dak’Art trip. “He looks forward to profiling fellow participants, as well as the people and cultural differences to be encountered on the trip. The last trip had given him a chance to develop his writing skills”, Ajao explains. She also mentions Gabriel Goller, a first-time participant, is a German photographer, who intends to transfer the photography style he developed in university into the project. Joining them are Souleymane Konate (Cote d’Ivoire), Ray Clever Agbo (Ghana) and Dame Diongue aka Bay Dam (Senegal). “They will be picked up at “bus stops” along the way to Dak’Art. During this leg of the journey, artists will research and simultaneously produce their works which will be presented at Dak’Art, and at the Goethe-Institutes in Ghana, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire and the German-Malian Cultural Centre, Mali”, Ajao reports in her release.

• Compiled by staff of Festac News Agency

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