Monday, April 12, 2010

LAGOS: 2060

LAGOS: 2060
As Nigeria celebrates 50 years of independence in the year 2010, the nation’s history remains closely related to the growth of Lagos as an urban center. Lagos 2060 is a project designed to creatively capture the essence of Lagos in futuristic scenarios, well grounded in the city’s origins and present urban renewal efforts. The project will engage young persons with strong creative writing abilities in workshops that will touch on architectural and urban planning theories and concepts, historical overview of the city’s growth, ideas and tips for science fiction writing. The workshops will be interactive and will be led by the duo of Ayodele Arigbabu and James George. There will be three monthly workshops during which participants will be encouraged to produce exciting short fiction based on the theme and an anthology of the most remarkable of the participants’ works will be selected, published and distributed by DADA books in 2011.

Lagos: 2060 refers to a fictional / futuristic take on the city of Lagos. What will Lagos evolve into in the next fifty years taking into consideration the mega city’s rich history and current urban renewal efforts by the State Government? What will it be like to live in Lagos 100 years after Nigeria gained independence from the British?

Scope:
• Three workshop sessions spread over three months for talented young persons.
• Continuous online exchange will be maintained during the duration of the project to give the participants access to the facilitators through the DADA books blog, facebook group page and email exchange.
• The works found most engaging will be selected, edited, illustrated and published in an anthology titled Lagos: 2060 by our publishing imprint- DADA books.

Methodology:
• Young creative persons are encouraged to signify their interest in participating in the workshops by sending an email with ‘LAGOS 2060_interest’ as title and a sample of their writing of not more than 300 words to dreamarts.designagency@gmail.com until the 18th of April 2010. Interested participants should be committed to making themselves available for the workshop dates and meeting up with the creative writing exercises planned for the duration.
• The first workshop will hold on Saturday 24th April 2010 (at the Center For Excellence in Film and Media Studies, 44A Palm Avenue, MKO Abiola Gardens, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos) and the facilitators will make presentations and lead the participants in discussions on the highlighted areas of history, urban planning / infrastructure, and creative writing / science fiction. The interaction will continue online through the dedicated blog and email exchanges between the facilitators and the participants as the participants plot and develop their short stories set in Lagos in the year 2060.
• The second workshop will hold on Saturday 22nd May 2010. This workshop will serve as a mid-term review of the first draft of the writing carried out by the participants up until that date. The participants will be given extra tips on how to fine tune their stories based on examples taken from amongst their works.
• The participants will submit their short fiction on or before the 19th of June 2010, the day of the third and final session during which they would present their works and share experiences in an extended peer review session.
• Announcements would follow on the selected works and publication details from DADA books.

Facilitators:
1. James George- Architect, urban researcher and theorist on the growth and development of Lagos,
CEO, HUB CT Technologies.
2. Ayodele Arigbabu- Architect, author and publisher, DADA books.
3. Chris Ihidero- Coordinator, Center for Excellence in Film & Media Studies.

Partners
1. Studio 1.5
2. Dream Arts & Design Agency (DADA books)
3. Center for Excellence in Film & Media Studies

Contact:
Ayodele Arigbabu
Dream Arts & Design Agency
1st Floor, 95 Bode Thomas Street,
Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria.
e-mail: dreamarts.designagency@gmail.com
Telephone: 234-01-7451990
Mobile: 234-803-3000499
Blog: www.ireaddadabooks.wordpress.com

1 comment:

  1. this sounds very interesting. it is very commendable. like your blog

    ReplyDelete