2. 2. No waste land

The meeting with LAWMA director was postponed to Wednesday, so we decided to visit Heinrich Böll Foundation and Goethe Institute in search of possible partners, who could help us with shipping our dividends, and maybe help us to bring the exhibition to Lagos.

With Monika Umunna of Heinrich Boell Foundation we discussed CO2 emissions in Africa: We have seen so much fire and smoke from Benin to Togo, Ghana and Nigeria, but there is no measuring, no statistics, no awareness. Then Monika introduced us to the staff of Goethe Institute, which is located in the offices of Boell Foundation until they can move to their new building in March.

After this, we decided to visit CCA Lagos - Center of Contemporary Art, run by Bisi Silva. We could not afford expensive taxies, so we went to take a “Danfor” – small, yellow VW-busses, the public transport of Lagos. They take 8 passengers.

After half an hour of waiting with locals, most of them disappeared and advised us to go a few stops back, because all Danfors coming to this stop were packed with people already and did not take more. We went to the big street to stop a motorbike taxi – we had good experiences with this way of transport from Cotonou. No, they are not allowed to drive out of their own district. They would do it anyway, but it would cost around Eur 15,- for both of us, thank you. For Eur 1,- they would bring us to a better bus stop. On the way, they asked every Danfor-driver if he would go our direction, and soon we were on our way.

Looking for CCA, we had to ask for directions several times, which was fun, because people were really helpful and nice. The house welcomed us with a bicycle made of used metal cans on the terrace. Bisi showed us her library with a comprehensive collection of books and magazines on African art, women´s art, feminism, as well as catalogues of notable international art events. She just had an international exhibition on “Old News”, in collaboration with a Danish gallery. http://www.oldnewsnews.org/

How about the reaction of the Lagos art audience? Well – collectors are irritated, they don´t see artworks they can buy…

After this inspiring visit we took a walk in the quarter, collected some dividends, and then took a Danfor back to our hotel – in the go-slow time between 6 - 8 p.m., and it took us precisely from 6 – 8 p.m to get there.

Later in the night, we visited the Fela Kuti Shrine.

Resumee of our day out: The waste on Lagos streets is disappointing. My inspiration to start the project was a visit in Lagos in 2005, where I was impressed by the huge amounts of trash on all streets. This was the El Dorado of waste, here I wanted to return and explore. And now: almost nothing, except the LAWMA-women in orange overalls, brushing and collecting waste everywhere we were going.

Tomorrow we finally would meet the LAWMA-officials, find out what happend, and then visit their huge landfill.