Bar Beach Series

This series looks back at the now reclaimed Bar Beach in Lagos. Bar Beach was once one of the most accessible and visited beaches in Lagos where revelers could horse ride, swim, play beach football and engage in picnic activities. Bar beach gave up its ghost for a new city on the Atlantic – Eko Atlantic City. The series adopts a post-documentary style with emphasis on the middle ground. The images have been remastered to pick up references to bar beach's history of spectacle. These photographs are part of a broader series on Lagos. Lagos seen from the distance is attractive - she is stable, safe and inviting. Lagos seen from the foreground can be warm but edgy – always wavering on the verge. The city experienced from the middle ground, however, can be distancing and unwelcoming. The characters in the middle ground can appear fierce and aggressive, territorial and menacing in their roles playing the drama of real life Lagos. It is from this middle ground that I remastered these images. The desire is to transform the grittiness. To transform the many unknown characters into desirable cultural objects. To aim to glamorize this middle ground is counter subversive - seeding change by altering the context from which we form lasting experiences of the city. I seek to add back the charm of the foreground, and the allure of the background to the mystique of the middle ground.