Revolving Art Incubator

RAI was established in 2016, as a platform for trans-disciplinary engagement and contemporary art discourse, growing the possibilities of artistic and interdisciplinary collaborations in the city of Lagos Nigeria. 

We have worked directly with over 50 creatives and indirectly impacted over 1,000 creatives across the fields of architecture, visual/performing arts, new media/extended reality and literature. Our incubator provides a space for experimentation and interdisciplinary synergies, developing prototypes for transformative solutions through creative solutions, while expanding the knowledge base of creatives via direct engagement with the local, within the global artistic and cultural framework.

With the Elevate prize funding, we aim to extend our reach beyond our locale in Victoria Island Lagos,and facilitate co-productions between creatives under our platform, and their immediate communities by uncovering the indigenous knowledge systems underpinning the spaces.We aim to build upon knowledge systems extracted from cultural substructures in these localities into prototypes for the future.

We are rethinking these physical and social interventions as sites to generate solutions to some of the urban challenges facing these communities. While using these engagements to bring the communities closer to the creatives who live within them; and together solve some of the challenges posed by urban living in these communities.

In 2015, after participating at the 2015 Venice Biennale All the World’s Future, (as part of the Invisible Borders Trans African Photography collective); As a storyteller and cultural producer, I began exploring the relationship between process and outcome as complimentary associations, Our platform encourages, in the words of Boaventura de Sousa Santos,  'alternative thinking of alternatives', and within this we began looking critically at cultural substructures inherent within informalities and traditional methodologies as guides for artistic and cultural production. 

Our spatial intervention, situated on a fire exit at one of the popular commercial malls in the city of Lagos, was the starting point of a re-negotiation of physical and social spaces, and our co-production model gives us the opportunity to look at cultural substructures as canons of indigenous knowledge systems, alongside our cohort of creatives and their communities, situating RAI at the intersection between community, the arts, architecture and technology. 

Our vision is to utilize our cross-disciplinary methodology through experimental formats to bring forth prototypes, which will enrich the archives of the future. We are using our findings to engage the local and situate this within the global socio-cultural discourse on decolonizing knowledge systems.

Prior to our entry into the creative ecosystem in 2016, Lagos a city of over 21million by the last estimate, had less than 15 viable art organizations, 95% of which were located on the Island of Lagos, in elite neighbourhoods around Lagos Island, Ikoyi and Victoria Island, where consumption was majorly commercial, and engagements through invitation-only events attended mainly by the elite class of art-enthusiasts creating an artificial barrier between the audience and the creatives. 

The situation re-enforced social inequality, where exhibitions were often perceived as a ‘rich-man's sport’. The lack of experimental spaces made it impossible for artists to explore topics outside of the pressures of commercial viability and to showcase their works to the public,without fear of offending the elite class who also happen to be majorly the political class.  

Programs at our Incubator Space such as Artist-At-Work, Art+VR, outSPOKEN, Words-As Therapy, RAI artist talks, RAI book-drive, periodic presentations and exhibitions and our public space intervention projects such as Art Takes Community and the collaborate project Animate Old Lagos directly engages the challenges facing creatives, reinforcing the role of communal spaces in bridging gaps in physical and social spaces.

The notion of bringing art to the people emerged from 19th century France, where democratization of art as a means of countering the social impacts of industrialization and urbanization. We are reformatting  this methodology by taking our influences from the organization of informalities in the society and re-adapting them into formats for engagement while creating experiences that is relevant to the local communities in the city of Lagos.

The lack of experimental spaces made it impossible for artists to explore topics outside of the pressures of commercial viability and to showcase their works to the public,without fear of offending the elite/political class.

 Our cultural production now caters to the sensibilities of the everyday people, taking art consumption out of elite spaces, into the new commons, the 'western shopping malls',suggested to be the new town squares or public space, in which all can come and be with 'community', even though the coming together is driven by commerce. 

Our starting point was our intervention at the silverbird galleria mall,aimed to meet people where they are, and now we taking our next intervention into the new commons  such as traditional market spaces, bus stops, bukaterias and, newspaper stand places where people currently converge.

Step 1 Spatial Intervention - through interventions we are engaging both social and physical spaces within the art ecosystem in Lagos as a means to solve some of the urban challenges facing the city.

Step 2: Experiments our cross disciplinary experiments allows for knowledge sharing amongst formal and informal knowledge systems which allows for growth and creation of prototypes which aims to transform some of the challenges facing the communities.

Step 3 : Creating Prototypes, which will become tangible outcomes of social and physical interventions and geared towards problem solving. We are currently working on two prototypes in collaboration with our 2019 cohort of apprentice looking at solving the challenge of accessibility for street artists using technology.

Step 4: Outputs:  The final outputs will become accessible to people and communities alike.

A February 2019 New York times article listed RAI as one of 'Lagos’s sharpest artist-run spaces'. Beyond this mention, we have become a rallying point for the creative industry ecosystem facilitating collaborations and co-production across industry. Artists under our platform such as David Akinola have gone on to showcase experimental pieces such as his Augmented Reality presentation Major and Minor verses at the Artjoburg Gallery Lab.