An Interview With Bisi Silva from CCA, Lagos
Robert Sloon: How do you see CCA, Lagos’ role as an African Gallery?
Bisi Silva: CCA is a gallery based in Africa with a global remit. I think first of all the objectives are to present the work of Nigerian artists and then African artists as a way of providing more cultural exchange and interaction between artists in Nigeria and other parts of Africa. I see it as a way of bringing emerging artists, who work in a very experimental manner, supporting their work and providing the platform for them to actually develop their work. It’s not just about lovely painting and sculpture, it’s about giving people the opportunity to experiment, and helping them to put it in a critical framework.
RS: And a financial framework, bringing your gallery here to an art fair?
BS: This is our first commercial or income-generating project. We need to be able to sustain ourselves in the long term, as we all know funding possibilities are becoming very scarce.
RS: How does the gallery run itself presently?
BS: We’ve only been running for a year and a bit. We’ve had some project funding from the Prince Klaus fund, from the Commonwealth foundation and from patrons of the arts. But we need to spend the next two years looking at how we sustain the bulk of what we do, without always having to ask other people to fund us. And part of that is coming to an Art Fair such as this, but also part of that is making the work of these artists accessible and visible to a wider audience.
RS: And to a local audience?
BS: That’s very important to us as well, to develop art in Nigeria, continentally and globally. We’ve got an exhibition in India in two weeks time, where we are collaborating with a commercial gallery. We’re taking seven artists from different African countries. They don’t have much contact with African artists there, and this is an opportunity to introduce African artists to another market.