Lagos stands as Africa’s cultural heartbeat, buzzing with a dynamic blend of art, fashion, and innovation. This Nigerian metropolis is a hub for creatives and entrepreneurs, setting trends and showcasing Africa’s rich cultural diversity on a global stage.
The last time I traveled to Nigeria, I was seven years old. It was 1994 and my parents, who had emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1980s, had not returned home since. They were eager to introduce their four daughters — including me, their second oldest — to their family.
In the town of Port Harcourt, the capital of my parents’ home state of Rivers, my sisters and I were dropped into the arms of cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends who had been waiting years to squeeze, kiss, feed, and spoil us — and also introduce us to our “Nigerianness.” My parents had spoken some Igbo to us when I was learning to talk, but I had already lost the language. I stared blankly into the eyes of dozens of brown-faced, white-toothed strangers, while my older sister, who was still fluent, translated. “Where are you from?” I was asked. “America,” I would reply, a bit confused. I was promptly told that I was not an American, but a child of Nigeria.
Being in Nigeria may afford me the luxury of being unapologetically Black, unlike in the white spaces that I navigate in the United States. But most of my extended family in Nigeria doesn’t know that I’m gay. And, in Nigeria, being openly gay is an actual danger. In 2014, Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan signed the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, and since then, authorities have carried out mass arrests and have looked the other way as citizens commit violence against Nigerians suspected of being gay. Many of those accused of violating the law have been charged with either planning, celebrating, or participating in gay marriage or simply appearing queer. The penalty for a conviction is imprisonment for up to 14 years.
In my early 30s, I moved from the Midwest, where I was born and raised, to New York City. I was both exhausted and excited. I had spent years denying my creative passion and my identity, but I was going to be a writer, and in one of the gayest cities in the country.
Not long after I arrived, I went to the Whitney Museum of American Art and walked through “To Wander Determined,” an exhibition of works by Nigerian-American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola. One of the charcoal sketches depicted a scene from the marriage celebration of two men, joining together two fictional aristocratic Nigerian clans. To me, these canvases were a portal to a world of audacious possibility. The little queer kid in me was awestruck; the adult me was radicalized.
About five years after that experience at the Whitney, I decided it was finally time to go back to Nigeria, but alone, and on my own terms. I traveled to Lagos, about 400 miles northwest of my parents’ home state. With 17.5 million people, Lagos is both Nigeria’s and Africa’s most populous city. (Lagos was also the capital until Abuja was given the title in 1991.) It’s a coastal city, bordered in part by the Gulf of Guinea and a large lagoon that forms stretches of scenic beach.
Lagos might be best known for Afrobeat, the music genre pioneered and named by the late Fela Kuti, or as the setting for many “Nollywood” films. But the city has also become one of Africa’s major festival destinations; it hosts Art X Lagos, West Africa’s first international art fair, and Lagos Fashion Week, the leading event of its kind on the continent. It felt like the right place to reacquaint myself with the country and to immerse myself in its creative scene.
I knew that once I was on the ground, I could not openly exist as a queer person. I didn’t know how that would make me feel, and I was afraid to find out. But I knew I wanted to see art by Nigerians, in Nigeria.
My cousin Ebuka made plans to join my weeklong trip. I hadn’t seen him since that first visit nearly three decades ago, but I trusted him. (My mother had also warned him that if a single hair on my head was hurt, there would be hell to pay.)
Ebuka is very tall and sturdy, with a smile as wide as his face. As soon as I landed at the airport, and began to look for him, I felt I was somewhere exotic and familiar at the same time. Nigerian words flowed into my ears and out of my mouth as I tried to pick up the Igbo flow.
When I stood in front of the first artwork of the trip, I felt whole-body relief, just as I had in the Whitney so many years ago. Ebuka and I had stopped into Untitled, a gallery that looked like a shabby concrete cube, but with a colorful sculpture of a butterfly on its exterior. It was International Women’s Day, and the gallery was hosting a panel to accompany “Split,” an exhibition of works by women.
One of them, Fiyin Koko, was kind enough to pose for a photo with me in front of her paintings I’m Learning and Can You Hear Me? In the works, two women who resembled the artist — but with blue skin and flowing hair, like tendrils of seaweed — are playing telephone across the two canvases. Each woman is holding a paper cup to her ear and listening to the other, as if the two figures are one former and future self.
The piece that had the biggest impact on me was Chigozie Obi’s An Open Garden, which shows a young woman sitting back on her elbows, flipping the bird. Her legs are open to expose pink lace panties, and her belly is revealed under a green crop top. Green vines curl around her thighs. In capital letters, the artist had written, in Igbo, “Meche Okpa Gi, I Bu Nwanyi!” This piece scandalized my cousin, but I squealed in delight when I realized I could read, pronounce, and translate “Close Your Legs, You’re a Woman!” without assistance.
Memories flooded back of the many times I was told to carry myself in a manner that suited my gender and the norms of Nigerian culture. I laughed to myself, wondering whether my parents would be proud to know that their second daughter wasn’t completely useless at speaking Igbo, or if they would be mortified to find out that a sexual display of resistance was the reason for this linguistic revelation. I decided the answer didn’t matter.
One of the most notable places to see art in Lagos is the Nike Art Gallery, the country’s largest privately owned gallery. Every inch of the walls, and many inches of the floor, were covered in paintings, sketches, sculptures, and mixed media, all strewn about without any apparent curation.
