Creative Conversations/digital: Azu Nwagbogu and Steven Evans

Saturday, September 12 | 2PM 

African curator and organizer Azu Nwagbogu , Founder and Director of the African Artists’ Foundation and LagosPhoto Festival, and Curator at Large of the Zeitz MOCAA (Cape Town), joins FotoFest Director Steven Evans, for a conversation focused on Contemporary African photography, the role of lens-based institutions, and Biennial foundations.

The African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) is a non-profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria that is dedicated to the promotion and development of contemporary African arts and artists. Nwagbogu, a collector and curator, is also the founder of numerous other projects supporting and celebrating African arts and photography, including the National Art Competition, LagosPhoto Festival and Art Base Africa, which is a new virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary African Art and diaspora.

About the guests
Azu Nwagbogu is the Founder and Director of African Artists' Foundation (AAF), a non-profit organization based in Lagos, Nigeria. Nwagbogu was recently elected as the Director of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in South Africa. Nwagbogu also serves as Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, an annual international arts festival of photography held in Lagos. He is the creator of Art Base Africa, a virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary African Art. Nwagbogu served as a juror for the Dutch Doc, POPCAP Photography Awards, the World Press Photo, Prisma Photography Award (2015), Greenpeace Photo Award (2016), New York Times Portfolio Review (2017-2018), W. Eugene Smith Award (2018), PhotoEspaña (2018) and is a regular juror for organizations such as Lensculture and Magnum. For the past 20 years, he has curated private collections for various prominent individuals and corporate organizations in Africa. Nwagbogu obtained a Masters in Public Health from The University of Cambridge. He lives and works alternatively in Cape Town, South Africa and Lagos, Nigeria.

Steven Evans is an artist, writer, curator, and executive director of the award-winning arts organization FotoFest International, which founded and sponsors the first and longest running international Biennial of Photography and New Media Art in the U.S. Appointed in 2014, he is responsible for exhibitions, art programs, administration, and Biennial organization. He recently represented FotoFest at photography events and festivals in Argentina, Brazil, China, France, South Korea, Latvia, and Singapore.

In 2018, Evans co-curated the FotoFest Biennial 2018, INDIA: Contemporary Photography and Mixed Media Art, with artist Sunil Gupta. Evans co-curated the FotoFest Biennial 2016, CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES - Looking at the Future of the Planet, with FotoFest Co-founders Wendy Watriss and Frederick Baldwin. He co-edited the hardcover books INDIA, Contemporary Photography and Mixed Media Art, and CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES (Amsterdam: Schilt Publishing, 2018 and 2016, respectively). Evans has organized multiple exhibitions and projects throughout his career, including the FotoFest exhibitions I Am A Camera; Seeing Harvey: Personal Stories, Public Responses; Velvet Generation; and Dansk Konceptuelt Fotografi, featuring a wide range of artists from around the world.

Prior to FotoFest, Evans worked with a wide range of artists and collaborators as managing director of the Dia: Beacon Museum in New York State and as director of the Linda Pace Foundation in San Antonio, Texas. His own artwork incorporates a range of media including photography. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, and elsewhere, including a one-person exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in 2019.