Flâneuse Female Artists’ Perspectives on Navigating Lagos

In March 2020, Adéọlá Ọlágúnjú led a 3-day photography workshop for women in Lagos alongside the Nlele Institute, Lagos and Odun Orimolade (Artist, Lecturer) as guest facilitator. The workshop titled “flâneuse”, a French term that describes a certain type of city wanderer-explorer who, in the sense of Charles Baudelaire, is “at the center of the world and at the same time hidden from the world. This can be said to metaphorically encapsulate the position and experiences of women and women-creatives in Lagos, Nigeria. During the workshop, the female gaze was explored intensively; what it is? how it is constructed? and what is its function in a patriarchal society? The way women look/see was examined in order to understand how they photograph or create, while also focusing on the relationship and limitations between the artist/photographer and the city of Lagos.

As a result of a successful workshop, a second project phase was initiated. Flâneuse: Female Artists’ Perspective to Urban Planning in Lagos is a project that employs art as an advocacy tool for the inclusion of the female perspective into urban planning in Lagos. Women-creatives convey through their artworks how public spaces in Lagos are characterised by gender inequality, gender violence, stereotypes, and female gender non-inclusion. The issues that affect women of various classes and ages when navigating the city. The second phase of the Flâneuse Project was coordinated and co-curated with Jumoke Sanwo, a cultural producer and creative director of the Revolving Art Incubator Lagos, Nigeria.

At the end of a year-long creative process, three projects were produced by three women artists.