Lagos, Peckham, Repeat: Pilgrimage To The Lakes – South London Gallery

A very thoughtfully curated exhibition, Lagos, Peckham, Repeat: Pilgrimage to the Lakes explores migration, identity, home and belonging in a select few works over two sites at the South London Gallery.

Lagos, Peckham, Repeat: Pilgrimage to the Lakes

The short nature of this review is mostly a reflection of the relatively small number of works on display rather than the intellectual weight behind it, which is great. Lagos, Peckham, Repeat: Pilgrimage to the Lakes examines work by Nigerian and Nigerian diaspora artists with a sense of home, journey, identity and belonging. It’s co-curated by the South London Gallery and Folakunle Oshun, founder and director of the Lagos Biennial.

The exhibition focuses on and connects two places: Lagos and Peckham. Lagos, a Portuguese name referring to its position surrounded by lakes/lagoons, has long been a key trading port. Today it is a disorderly yet functioning mega-city of 15 million, Nigeria’s largest. Peckham, in South East London, was for a long time a village. It’s firmly part of London’s urban sprawl now, with a tension between gentrifying forces and established African and Caribbean populations. One of the largest Nigerian diaspora communities in the UK lives here.

But in the long term migration is rarely a one-way force. Lagos, Peckham, Repeat contains work by artists who have emigrated from Nigeria, artists who have immigrated back to Nigeria, and some who straddle both worlds. Just as visitors flow between the South London Gallery’s two sites, the purpose is to understand movements of people and ideas as a flow and loop rather than a broadcast.

Extrapolating Curatorial Intent From Artworks: Not Always Easy

If I have one critique of this very interesting exhibition, it’s that extrapolating curatorial intent from art can be challenging. It reminds me of something I read about the recent rehang at Tate Britain: that visitors aren’t going to do the work of understanding subtle links between juxtaposed artworks. It’s either clear or it’s not. Here the overall intent is clear, but you have to do some work to get to the nuance. There is no signage in the gallery spaces. Information on the artworks in the accompanying handout is minimal. But there’s a very intellectual essay by Folakunle Oshun in that same handout: this is the key. The optimal way to go about things would almost be to read this before going to the gallery, like homework, so you can get more out of your experience while you’re there.

The artworks themselves are nonetheless thought-provoking. It starts even before you enter, with Emeka Ogboh’s 2023 Lagos Soundscapes immersing you in bustling Nigerian streets. A work by Ndidi Dike on global commodity trade commands the main gallery space. It draws links between the marketplaces of Peckham and Lagos and reflects on value creation and assignation. It brought to mind A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography, with artists in both exhibitions focusing on the archive. The seemingly neutral archive is actually an important space for creation, or taming, or destruction of information. Here we have neglected studio archive negatives and their prints, curated by Helsinki-based Lagos Studio Archives. Or there’s short film No Archive Can Restore You by Onyeka Igwe. The dusty and dilapidated shelves of the Nigerian Film Unit are an interesting commentary on how meaning is lost as well as gained in a post-colonial/post-independence context.

Lagos, Peckham, Repeat: Pilgrimage to the Lakes is well worth a pilgrimage to Peckham to explore in person. Just make sure you pick up a copy of the brochure and get ready for some serious reading to take it all in.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

Lagos, Peckham, Repeat: Pilgrimage to the Lakes on until 29 October 2023