To respond to our times, we must think about our place in the world. Increasingly, humanity’s fate is inextricably tied to the ways we shape and share life in urban centres. Indeed as poet Odia Ofeimun illuminates, though modern cities often create conditions leading to social breakdown they are to be embraced not deprecated as cities are "humankind's most permanent experiment in living together.”
Long before Lagos became the conurbation that we know it as today, it was a mangrove settlement called Eko. To consider what thriving in this dynamic, coastal geography could look like the indigenous tropical mangrove provides a compelling metaphor. Its wayward roots stabilise making it resilient and adaptable no matter the tide, and changing environmental conditions. Where other plants fail, as it replicates itself it cultivates a home space for multi species living. The mangrove forest emulates the Yoruba proverb that life creates hope, as it generates and sustains a healthy ecosystem.
Metropolitan Lagos is described as an ever changing and irrepressible city known for producing visual theatre. It is characterised by sharp contrasts, a hustling energy and anarchic tendencies. Even when a crisis strikes, it remains a place where enjoyment never stops. When we imagine Lagos’ future, and life more broadly in urban centres, how can human imagination assist us in our attempt to create healthy, thriving spatialities that promote fellow feeling? We look to artists and their adeptness to poetically imagine otherwise, no matter the tide. So that we in turn consider the ways that we individually and collectively have agency to act, in imagining and cultivating our shared place in the world.