Goethe Institut Nigeria Announces its Residency Programme for Artists and Curators

The German cultural institute, Goethe-Institut has announced the continuation of its annual Lagos-Berlin Artist in Residency Program. Established in July 2015, the aim of the successful exchange program is to create a highly individualised program that, in addition to enabling a work stay of several weeks in the respective cities, includes an insight into the work of the partner institutions with opportunities for consultation, contact and exchange, as well as the presentation of project results in various formats.

The Nigerian side of this exchange program is jointly organised by Goethe-Institut Nigeria and the Lagos-based creative incubator, 16/16 (pronounced “16 by 16”). The Center for Art and Urbanistics (ZK/U) and SAVVY Contemporary will take care of the Berlin side of the exchange. This year the theme of the residency program is Dreaming New Worlds. Two resident artists have been selected: Nora Mandray (Berlin) and James Notin (Lagos). The residency program runs from September 2023 through April 2024.

This year, the residency seeks to explore how the artistic process will be (re)shaped by the incursion of new technologies into realms which were purely the preserve of artists, makers and culture producers. James Notin’s “Into the Wild” proposes a nonlinear literature which allows the reader to actively create their own story through a database as found in image generators and chatbots. They (Notin) are a Yoruba-Nigerian experimental artist and performance curator whose work investigates individuals in universal space and structure. Their works are based on the curation of public opinion and selective observation as a tool for distorting contemporary society to create a liberal space for analysing the social structure and their politics. Their two-month residency in Berlin offers them a chance to explore the archives of our Berlin-based partner, Savvy Contemporary, thus grounding the project in older forms of non-linear storytelling and orature.
With “Evil Encounter  2”, Nora Mandray intends to explore authenticity and truth[1]making by orchestrating human encounters together with AI. This will be achieved by re-enacting scenes of from a now-forgotten landmark of Nigerian Cinema and producing an AI-generated sequel inspired by the original. The initial film, directed by Nigerian filmmaker, Jimi Odumosu, demonstrated how lucrative a VHS release could be, at a time theaters were being replaced by television. Evil Encounter marked the beginning of the home video boom in Nigeria, which in turn helped the local film industry grow into what is today known as “Nollywood” – the world’s second biggest film industry in terms of output, with 2,000 movies produced every year. Their project turns AI into an active collaborator, in order to bring back to life a disappeared gem and imagine the future of Nigerian cinema.

Nora Mandray’s documentary practice explores the theme of metamorphosis through human encounter. By nature, non-fiction storytelling transforms real-life persons into characters; in turn, this transformation also changes the filmmaker(s) and, when successful, the resulting work itself can be a transformative (aka cathartic) experience for the audience too. With each new project they experiment with a new method or storytelling format. During their residency in Lagos, they will work closely with the Goethe-Institut and its partner, 16/16. For the Goethe-Institut Nigeria, which provides financial support for the residencies, this exchange marks a renewed consolidation of artistic exchange between Germany and Nigeria, whilst offering the interested public in both cities a fresh opportunity for a change of perspective.