Artist Residency

Lagos Studio Archives Residency

Oct 2023

In partnership with Guest Artists Space Foundation

ABOUT THE residency

Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.) and its Nigerian delivery partner Guest Artists Space Foundation (G.A.S.) have collaborated with Autograph to support a one-month residency at G.A.S. Lagos. The award was developed to help facilitate opportunities for critical research, and the development and production of new work.

Lagos Studio Archives is an on-going preservation project by Karl Ohiri & Riikka Kassinen, consisting of thousands of film negatives documenting Lagos studio portraiture and vernacular photography from the 1970s to post millennium. The project started when Ohiri discovered that archives were being burnt, destroyed and discarded during the shift from analogue to digital photography. The Lagos Studio Archives aims to preserve and present the imagery of a generation of photographers that captured the style, humour and aspirations of everyday Lagosians, whose works would have gone unnoticed to the art world without intervention.

The residency will allow Ohiri and Kassinen to conduct research into one of the oldest photographic studios within the Lagos Studio Archives project, Abi Morocco Photos, run by a husband and wife duo from 1970-2006. They will focus on their first decade of their practice, comprised of black and white photography from the 1970’s including studio portraiture and vernacular photography.


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in partnership with

Banner image: Headshot #27, c. 1970s. Courtesy Lagos Studio Archives.

Images on page: All courtesy Lagos Studio Archives. 1) Man in White Suit, 1979. 2) Woman Holding Curtains, 1979.