In recent decades, Lagos has expanded exponentially through large-scale land reclamation initiatives, major industrial and luxury development projects, new transportation infrastructures, and sprawling housing settlements. This steady growth has transformed and amplified the city’s distinctive history as a cosmopolitan hub, and incubator of cultural and technological innovation. Yet such rapid change continues to raise immense challenges, facing cities across the globe, about the impact of urbanisation on conceptions of identity and citizenship, affordable housing, the sustainability of natural resources, and socio-economic equality.

The second edition of the Lagos Biennial of Contemporary Art — How to Build a Lagoon with Just a Bottle of Wine? — brings together artworks and architectural projects by 44 individuals and collectives working in a range of mediums. Inspired by lines from Nigerian writer Akeem Lasisi’s poem, “A Song For Lagos,” the biennial’s title evokes the waterways on which Lagos was founded and metaphorically calls up the outsize ambitions and herculean challenges of urban transformation. Much of the work in this exhibition addresses the history and urban character of Lagos from the perspective of artists who either live in the city or spend time here for residencies or research projects. Whereas numerous other projects dwell on urban concerns in different parts of the world. The exhibition’s cumulative effect is one in which Lagos emerges as an epicenter, serving as both a convener and a case study for considering the challenges and possibilities of built environments today. “Built environments” are human-made spaces where people live, work, and recreate daily—typically in dialogue with natural, non-human, and virtual forms. The artworks and projects in this exhibition meditate on how environments are built and inhabited, pointing to the ecological, historical, and sociopolitical dimensions of the spaces we construct and inhabit. 

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