Convent
Garden is a well known public arena, a district in the UK. Year in, year out
this Mecca of some sort is a potpourri of creativity and cultural out-pouring
in theatre, Opera houses, art galleries, cinemas, shops and all manner of
cultural activities including street performances. In the middle ages, the
current square was a vegetable and floral field known as the convent garden: it
supplied food to the monks of the nearby convent of St. Peter.
The
old market which government of the day contemplated on demolishing for some
private estate development was later to be transformed into a remarkable
shopping and leisure centre due to mass public protest in the early nineteen
seventies. And so an erstwhile abandoned public space was converted to become
the tourist haven it is today for the United Kingdom.
In (Lagos) Nigeria however, a good and successful
example of how this idea could be harnessed is in the present use of the old Federal
Prisons structures at central Lagos, which the Lagos State government has in
recent years rehabilitated and turned into a fun, recreational and
entertainment centre called Freedom Park.
 |
| Freedom Park |
Freedom
Park is erected directly on the site of the colonial prison where prominent
Nigerians had their jail terms during the colonial era. The park, which is now
a peaceful place for individual and collective contemplation and interaction,
is open to the public on a daily basis. It is fast becoming an important centre
of various artistic and cultural as well as recreational activities situated in
the heart of Lagos. Within the complex the park stages from time to time art
exhibitions, drama presentations among other activities, hence the facilities
in this park include an art gallery, an amphi-theatre, shops, a museum complex,
etc.
And
today also in Lagos, by the sheer forthrightness and farsightedness of the
German cultural centre, the Goethe
Institut which had always nursed the hunger to bring about this kind of
transformation especially for the art community, is already matching thoughts
with action. And so through the able leadership of Marc-André Schmachtel, the
current director, the Institute in Lagos is already taking steps towards reviving
the vacant Printing Press building and transforming it into a vibrant art
space.
Before
now, the ‘abandoned’ old Federal Government Press on Broad Street since the
inception of this laudable ‘experiment’ has hosted series of events, courtesy –
the Goethe Institut, such as photographic exhibitions, installations, and then ‘The
Pop-Up Theatre’. The Pop-Up Theatre which is also an experiment geared towards
taking the National Theatre to the people, in that it could be enabled to
spring up anywhere instead of the traditional fixated national venue which has
seen in recent years a drastic reduction in attendance and, or patronage and
consequent enjoyment of these exhilarating live performances.
It
was the German duo of smirks Kötter and Fischbeck who dreamt up this idea and
sold it to Marc-André Schmachtel of the Goethe Institut. They were later to
incorporate their Nigerian counterparts - Burns Effiom and Koku Konu in their project.
And so The Pop-Up Theatre had to celebrate its premiere at the old Federal
Government Press.
The point is that art, either by reason of
harsh economic realities or sheer lack of understanding has always been
regarded as an elitist preserve rightly or wrongly. It is also evident that the role art and its
consequent environments play in the society is that of sublimity and an infinite
state of being that can only be appreciated in its overall and long run
effects: There is a need to create an ambiance that secludes the madding crowd
and the riotous traffic of especially the urban centre: an atmosphere that fertilizes creative energies in the kind of needed public space that the state,
local authorities, and corporate society ought to bring to birth. You need to
properly integrate art and the artist in the scheme of society by also creating
the needed opportunities; we need to harness the available skills, preserve and
promote our rich culture and precious heritage as well as the serenity of mind.
It is a sense of aesthetics and appreciation for beauty that leads to the
flowering of great minds and a cultured spirit, even of the society.
It is for such reasons that art and aesthetics
have always been adopted by governments in advanced societies wherein their
great civilizations and heritage had been built upon these factors. What has
happened to our own equally great but forgotten civilizations? One would want
to ask. And so they have made it common place that public grants, sponsorships
for art and public commissions have become the order of the day as a matter of guiding
principle by government.
And
there are several abandoned public spaces out there lying waste that are
suitable and require this sort of attention for the overall benefit and well
being of our society. In Lagos for example are – the old Ijora power station
structures, the abandoned Federal Secretariat in Ikoyi, the former National
Assembly complex at TBS, and the old Cenotaph at Lagos, etc.
By Morgan Nwanguma
(Culled from an article by the same
author and published in The UNION Newspaper – March, 2014, Lagos)
No comments:
Post a Comment