LIMCAF 2024 grand finale awards, exhibition hold October 26

After the 2024 Festival Lecture, which held on October 25, 2024, at the IMT Conference Centre, Enugu as well as interactive and photo sessions with top 100 young artists and tour of the city, all is set for this year’s Life In My City Art Festival (LIMCAF) grand finale and awards ceremony on Saturday, October 26.

LIMCAF, the largest and longest running yearly art festival in Nigeria, which began in 2007 to encourage artistic creativity and empower aspiring young artists, male and female including persons with disability, was registered as a Trusteeship in 2012 under the name Life In My City Art Initiative.

Over the years, it has been a platform for discovering young artists and a springboard into professionalism, promoting advocacy for social issues such as gender equity and domestic violence.

The Grand Finale features works of art from young people across the country, selected from over 600 works exhibited in 11 exhibition centres across Nigeria.

Over N6 million will be won in prizes at the festival. The overall winner will get N1million. Other prizes include, Best Painting/Mixed media/Drawing – N500,000; Best Sculpture/Installation Art – N500,000; Best Ceramics N500,000; Best Graphics/Digital Art N500,000; Photography/Video N500,000; Best Textile Art/Fashion N500,000; Drawing N500,000; Consolation Prizes N50,000; Most Creative Female Artist N500,000 and Special Award for Person with Disability N500,000.

There are also some endowed prizes such as Justice Aniagolu Prize for Originality – N300,000; Dr. Pius Okigbo Prize for Technical Proficiency – N150,000; Mfon Usoro Prize for Best Entry from Uyo-Calabar Region – N200,000; Vin Matin Ilo Prize for Best Entry from Enugu Region – N200,000 and Fedelia Okoroafor Prize for Most Promising Female Artist – N200,000.

The top six artists will be sponsored to Dak’art Biennale courtesy of El Anatsui.

This year’s theme is Humanism. What are the qualities that make us humans? It demands the spirit of altruism and a determination in pursuit of the common good in all; it demands that everyone takes his/her destiny in his/her hands by truly being human in his/her relationship to one another and the environment.

Earlier, the organising committee of LIMCAF released the list of members of the National Jury Panel as well as the curator of the Festival’s Grand Finale Exhibition for the 2024 edition.

A statement from the Art Director of LIMCAF, Dr. Ayo Adewunmi, said the final list of the National Jury Panel was agreed upon and was made public after a meeting of the organising committee. This is in keeping with the policy to protect jury members from possible pressure during the conduct of the jury process.

The jury members include, Prof. Blaise Gundu Gbaden, Professor Babasehinde Augustine Ademuleya, Obioha Onyebuchim Nwaegbe, Nadama Mustapha Garba, May Okafor and Prof Margaret Olugbemisola Areo. Professor Gbaden of the Federal University of Lafia, Nasarawa State, is chairman of the adjudicating panel.

Adewunmi also announced the reappointment of Amarachi Okafor as curator for the 2024 grand finale exhibition of the 100 Best New Works from the over 700 entries at the close of submissions in May. The Best 100 were selected during the regional exhibitions in the 15 regional centres across the geopolitical zones of Nigeria.

Okafor was the Curator for the Nigeria national annual youth art festival LIMCAF, for the year 2023. Her curatorial and art handling experience is noticeably global and truly eclectic including online exhibitions, a touring project through virtually all of Europe, among other specialised work in places as far flung as Saudi Arabia, Iceland and of course Nigeria.

Her art practice is focused on learning, participation [audience engagement]; experimentation and transformation. Her work takes on an exciting curatorial angle involving research and co-ordination, elements of design, architecture, and concepts around humanism, society, and the history of things.