WORLDS UN/MAKING
WORLDS UN/MAKING
CURATED BY EVA MARIA OCHERBAUER DESIGNED BY ALAFURO SIKOKI-COLEMAN
A FotoFactory.Lagos project in collaboration with Research Centre for Society, Technology, and Ecology in Africa - Challenges of the 21st Century (FZA), Bayreuth, and the Iwalewahaus, University of Bayreuth, Germany
"worlds un/making" focuses on social, political, economic and ecological transformation processes and the resulting practical challenges in the 21st century, in accordance with the FZA research program.
We aim for an exhibition that will carry meaning for the worlds we currently live in — and most importantly, for the worlds we want to make. Artists are the visionaries and social scientists who allow us to reflect and project in ways that can be exemplary. The topic of "worlds un/making" relates to creating / imagining / building futures in the 21st century. The analysis and critique of “imperial world-making”, including colonialism as a world-making process serves as a basis for mapping out alternative systems, which implies visionary ideas as well as tangible activities. We also see the unmaking of worlds, the prevention / destruction, or silencing of worlds as part of today's new strategies for a sustainable, possible future. It is central for us to think about the world “from the vantage point of Africa” (Mbembe 2023) and not to see Africa as a “world apart”.
We are interested in the dialogues that emerge when a diversified group of images from various propositions, start acting like pieces of a bigger organism, all together linked in one exhibition.
worlds un/making
FEATURED ARTISTS
Adedolapo Boluwatife Abimbola, Invitation to Invade 1 (2025)
Adedolapo Boluwatife Abimbola, Invitation to Invade 2 (2025)
Adedolapo Boluwatife Abimbola, Invitation to Invade 3 (2025)
Adedolapo Boluwatife Abimbola, Invitation to Invade 4 (2025)
Adedolapo Boluwatife Abimbola, Invitation to Invade 5 (2025)
Aderemi Davies, The Spirit of Lagos vvs2 5 (2019)
Aderemi Davies, The Spirit of Lagos vvs2 6 (2019)
Aderemi Davies, The Spirit of Lagos vvs2 8 (2019)
Anthony Monday, Na Young I Young, No Be Craze I Craze 1 (2023)
Anthony Monday, Na Young I Young, No Be Craze I Craze 2 (2023)
Anthony Monday, Na Young I Young, No Be Craze I Craze 3 (2023)
Anthony Monday, Na Young I Young, No Be Craze I Craze 4 (2023)
Grace Diepreye Okilo, The Body is a Canvas 1 (2025)
Grace Diepreye Okilo, The Body is a Canvas 2 (2025)
JohnPeters Anyanwu, Mmamwu 4 (2025)
Jonathan Chinedu Chambalin, Glitch on Learning from the series: Are You Human (2024)
Jonathan Chinedu Chambalin, A Human Tag from the series: Are You Human (2024)
Jonathan Chinedu Chambalin, Digital Twins from the series: Are You Human (2024)
Mecca Akello, Tangled Roots 1 (2024)
Mecca Akello, Tangled Roots 6 (2024)
neec nonso, the masquerade and his apostles from the series: afamefuna (2023)
neec nonso, after god is dibia from the series: afamefuna (2023)
neec nonso, my name is afam from the series: afamefuna (2023)
neec nonso, satani from the series: afamefuna (2023)
neec nonso, the empty space in the head is very vast, from the series: afamefuna (2023) (2023)
Oluwaseun Godwin Usman, Veiled Futures 1 (2025)
Oluwaseun Godwin Usman, Veiled Futures 5 (2025)
Oluwaseun Godwin Usman, Veiled Futures 6 (2025)
Oyewole Lawal, The Mourning Tide: Reflections on the Coastal Waste Crisis (2024)
Prince Uhunoma Charles, My Mother on my Head 2 (2024)
Prince Uhunoma Charles, My Mother on my Head 3 (2024)
Prince Uhunoma Charles, My Mother on my Head 4 (2024)
Prince Uhunoma Charles, My Mother on my Head 6 (2024)
Troye Alexander, Song 89 from the series: Available After Armageddon (2025)
Troye Alexander, We The Faithful from the series: Available After Armageddon (2025)
ADEDOLAPO BOLUWATIFE ABIMBOLA
b.1996
Nigeria
Title: Invitation to Invade 3, 2025
His recent eco-conscious focus was sparked after witnessing the impact of plastic pollution and flooding; a clear consequence of environmental neglect mostly in urban spaces. His time spent in quiet communion with nature offered a healing counterbalance, helping him reconnect with himself and rediscover a sense of clarity and creative purpose. These experiences have come to shape his current body of work, which explores the fragile relationship between people and their environment, while advocating for both inner and ecological renewal.
Website: www.adedolapoboluwatife.com
Instagram: @adedolapoboluwatife
MECCA AKELLO
b.1996
Uganda / Nigeria
Title: Tangled Roots 6, 2024
I am an emerging photographer and self-portrait artist whose work explores themes such as beauty standards and the intersection of culture and contemporary identity. Through my work, I seek to capture the nuances of human expression, tradition, and resistance. By examining the silent weight of inherited narratives, my images aim to foster dialogue and reflection around often overlooked social dynamics.
@The.BlaqSun
TROYE ALEXANDER
b.1990
South Africa
Title: We The Faithful from the series: Available After Armageddon, 2025
Available After Armageddon (AAA) is a promise made between friends who grew up in a radicalized religious environment to always be there for each other even after their world had ended. The work aims to give insight into an upbringing within a religious community that used love, indoctrination and emotional abuse as tools to hold people to their faith. This is characteristic of many religious environments in which thousands of people are held by 'law' as to what God could provide via 'reward' or take away via 'punishment'.
@i_try_take_ok_photos
JOHNPETERS ANYANWU
b.1992
Nigeria
Title: Mmamwu 4, 2025
Mmanwu is an immersive visual journey into Igbo Masquerades and spirituality. It delves into depth of Igbo
age-long mystical traditions, unraveling the inseparable link between the living and the dead while interrogating the adaptability and resilience of the masquerade culture in the face of modernity.
@johnpetersanyanwu
JONATHAN CHINEDU CHAMBALIN
b.1995
Nigeria
Title: Glitch on Learning from the series, Are You Human, 2024
I say the way we use to know the times have evolved is how communication and photography evolves. We have moved from smoke signals, pagers, slower shutter speeds to digital cameras and now, phones.
AI at the primary level is fed already existing photographs (data) to the system through annotation tools. With the growing popularity of AI, how do we truly insure our data in both art, illustration and photography ? And with tools like ReCAPTCHA, what determines who is human enough, is it man or machine ?
@jonathanchambalin
PRINCE UHUNOMA CHARLES
b.1996
Nigeria
Title: My Mother on my Head 3, 2024
My mother on my head, a multidisciplinary project was supported by the Goethe-Institute and the Connect Grant 2024/2025; Ripples and the Inbetweens takes on the adventure of exploring the effect of transatlantic slavery and colonialism on the deconstruction of identities and formation of new ones. It fabulates the transformative encounter and attempts a cultural preservation / remembrance of a time before, during and post slavery. The project explores the impact of our traumatic experiences that have shaped the development of African hairstyles. It takes into focus the erasure of hairstyles as a primary form of documentation of events. It serves as a wake up call for deeper meaning and intentionality in the construction of new African styles. It calls on the reconsideration of hairstyles patterned as a form of individual and communal archive tapping into ancestral forms of preserving identity. It serves as an entry point into further conversations around African futurism exploring the concept of inculcating African past before the interference of western powers in the natural development of African social and cultural development into future dreaming.
@_uhunoma
ADEREMI DAVIES
b.1989
Nigeria
Title: The Spirit of Lagos vvs2 5, 2019
The Spirit of Lagos is a personification of the peculiar existential state of being a “Lagosian” as a psycho-spiritual phenomenon, a life force which gradually consumes the inhabitants till they become enchanted, initiated and subdued by this spirit called Lagos. Lagos is Nigeria’s commercial capital peculiarly known for its huge population, energy and ever busyness. It is the land that never sleeps.
The TSOL vvs2 collection is a creative fusion of two of my works, The Spirit of Lagos & Lagos in monochrome, to reveal an interaction of spirit persona and community as they are consumed by it.
@aderemiho3d
OYEWOLE LAWAL
b.1998
Nigeria
Title: The Mourning Tide: Reflections on the Coastal Waste Crisis, 2024
Mourning Tide is a visual and environmental project that confronts the growing crisis of waste pollution at Kinshasa Beach in Jamestown, Accra. Centred around the flow of discarded second-hand clothing from the bustling Katamanto market, the work traces the environmental toll of synthetic textile waste on local ecosystems. The nearby Korley Gonna Lagoon, once a thriving body of water, now serves as a conduit for pollution, linking urban consumer habits to coastal degradation. Mourning Tide stands as both a documentation and a call to action—urging communities and policymakers to rethink waste, trade, and the legacy of environmental inequality.
Caption: Niyazi Samuel also known as Donspiro is a fisherman assistance and a local rapper in Jamestown Accra, Ghana
@oyewole_lawal
ANTHONY MONDAY
b.1991
Nigeria
Title: Na Young I Young, No Be Craze I Craze 4, 2023
“Na Young I Young, No Be Craze I Craze” is a collection that goes beyond fashion; it emphasises the ideals of self-expression and self-acceptance. This work highlights the importance of making a
statement in a society that often tries to silence and erase voices. The individuals represented in this collection refuse to be invisible. They are the renegades, the disruptors, and the trailblazers who are forging new paths and defining a new future for their identity.
@anthonymonday15
neec nonso
b.1990
nigeria
title: my name is afam, from the series: afamefuna, 2023
neec nonso is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans photography, performance, and augmented reality, often exploring morbid themes, memories of the dead, and the haunting realms of myth and urban legend. his work delves into the complexities of identity, cultural rituals, and the darker aspects of human existence. in his project afamefuna, neec investigates the significance of names in igbo and yoruba traditions, using photography to explore the emotional and cultural meanings they carry. his practice challenges the christian misrepresentation of african deities, like “ekwensu” and “esu,” revealing their true significance beyond the concept of satan.
@neecnonso
GRACE DIEPREYE OKILO
b.2001
Nigeria
Title: The Body is a Canvas 2, 2025
As someone who struggles with the feelings of being overwhelmed by anxiety, consumed by loneliness, and disconnected from the natural world, I created this piece as a way to escape my reality. As a movement artist and dancer, I have always been fascinated by the body’s capacity for story telling and communication in different ways. Through this project, I am exploring how the human body placed in different conditions can convey narratives in ways that go beyond movement. By sharing my own struggles through these images, I hope to show that it is normal to feel overwhelmed, but it is crucial to turn those negative feelings into positive actions. Through my work, I am encouraging people to focus on the good things in life, like family, love, self-love, art, and career, as a way to cope with difficult emotions. I believe it is essential to find healthy ways to deal with our emotions and come out stronger on the other side.
@diepreye_grace
OLUWASEUN GODWIN USMAN
b.1998
Nigeria
Title: Veiled Futures 1, 2025
In Veiled Futures: Ritual, Ruin and Resistance in a World Remade the photographs trace a veiled figure’s journey through weathered, postcolonial landscapes, carrying a drum that functions as both archive and instrument of transformation. The covered face resists colonial legibility, embodying opacity as a right and power, while the drum becomes a conduit for memory, rupture, and renewal. Across these images a ritual of movement, silence, confrontation coexist: the weathered structures speak to histories of extraction, while the body(ies) becomes a vessel for reimagining what endures. The confronting gaze of two men reinforce collective agency and a shared future. Rooted in African knowledge systems, this work refuses narratives of decay as endings, rather insisting on the continuity and reinvention of African futures. Through gesture, gaze, and the power of refusal, Veiled Futures enacts a visual call to remake the world otherwise”.
@usman_is_man