On 23rd May 2024, G.A.S. resident Dawit L. Petros hosted Ekphrasis at Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos. The immersive public cinema experience was delivered in collaboration with fourteen movement-based artists, musicians, and singers from the QDance Centre. The diverse presentation included a showing of works in progress alongside experimental public cinema screenings, live performances, and a public discussion.
In the lead-up to the event, and throughout his residency at G.A.S. Lagos, Dawit hosted daily workshops with the students of QDance Center. The sessions were designed as a forum for the dancers to interrogate the urban landscape of Lagos. Together, they created experimental movement pieces that imagined photographs of the city's network of tangled electrical wires as scores, and generated performances that translated the essence of the city, through the embodied knowledge of its inhabitants, into movement.
The workshops were supported by professional development opportunities facilitated by Dawit. One of these was the Professional Practice as Research session that took place at G.A.S. Lagos and acted as a vehicle to demystify the institutional and professional frameworks that shape contemporary art practice.
Event Details
Title: Ekphrasis
Event Date: 23rd May 2024
Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Screening and Performance: 7:00pm prompt
Venue: Tiwani Contemporary Lagos, 13 Elsie Femi Pearse St, Victoria Island, Lagos.
ABOUT DAWIT L. PETROS
Dawit L. Petros is a visual artist, researcher, and educator. He completed an MFA in Visual Art at Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; a BFA in Photography at Concordia University, Montreal; a BA in History at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon; and the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum in New York City. His work bridges art, design, architecture, and history. Petros interrogates the relationship between African history, migration narratives, modernity, and the legacies of colonialism shaping current events. Petros anchors his production of photography, video, sound, and sculptural installations on extensive periods of study and travel. He is sensitive to formal concerns that balance political engagement with aesthetic language drawn from an abiding interest in minimalist sculpture and conceptual art-making.
Dawit's residency is generously supported by Tiwani Contemporary.
