From June 19th to 21st, 2025, G.A.S. Lagos hosted AfterImages, an exhibition of moving image installations and accompanying screenings interrogating the coloniality of archival film. Curated by Monangambee, AfterImages was presented as the culminating exhibition of Art Exchange: Moving Image, a curatorial professional development programme delivered by LUX, Yinka Shonibare Foundation, and Guest Artists Space Foundation, with support from the British Council. Focusing on Cameroonian cinema and broader film traditions from the Global South, the featured works used experimental and archival techniques to reflect on what remains after colonialism and how memory, history, and absence are expressed through film.
AfterImages moving image Installation.
The first two days of the exhibition featured immersive moving image installations. Films were projected onto walls, screened on television monitors, and even projected on the floor, inviting visitors into intimate, layered engagements with the works. These spatial interventions encouraged slow, embodied viewing and offered space to reflect on the sensory and archival dimensions of African diasporic cinema. Accompanying the installations was a table display of archival materials from the G.A.S. Library and the Picton Archive. This included multiple editions of Third Text, a leading journal known for its critical engagement with contemporary art, postcolonial theory, and the global conditions shaping cultural production. The display grounded the exhibited works within broader historical and material frameworks, enriching the viewer’s experience.
AfterImages public screening of Sita-Bella, The First, 2025 by Cameroonian filmmakers Eugenie Metala & Jean-Marie Teno.
The final day of AfterImages featured a public screening and panel discussion that welcomed guests for a shared evening of cinema and conversation. The screening programme unfolded in two thematic parts: Ghost Cinema and Residual Images, each exploring the visible and invisible threads that shape African film histories.
Ghost Cinema foregrounded filmmakers whose contributions remain influential but are often under-recognised in official archives. This section revisited the legacies of Cameroonian multimedia artist and filmmaker Goddy Leye (1965–2011), pioneering Cameroonian filmmaker and journalist Thérèse Sita-Bella (1933–2006), and French filmmaker and director Sarah Maldoror (1929–2020). It also featured works by Cameroonian filmmakers Eugénie Metala & Jean-Marie Teno and artist-researcher Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, whose films interrogate visibility, absence, and historical erasure in post-independence contexts.
Monangambee Curator Dara Omotoso (L) in conversation with G.A.S. resident Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu (R).
Following the screening, Monangambee curator Dara Omotosho joined G.A.S. resident Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu in a public conversation. Together, they reflected on the political and aesthetic implications of archival cinema, exploring how curatorial and research-based practices can challenge dominant film histories and open up new modes of collective remembering. The conversation was followed by a lively exchange with the audience. Attendees shared reflections, posed thoughtful questions about archival processes and curatorial choices, and engaged in open dialogue with the speakers.
AfterImages public screening of Muna Moto, 1975 by Cameroonian film director and writer Jean-Pierre Dikongué-Pipa's
The programme concluded with Residual Images, a section that spotlighted the work of Cameroonian director and writer Jean-Pierre Dikongué-Pipa, whose landmark film Muna Moto (1975) marked its 50th anniversary. Produced in the 1970s and 1980s, Muna Moto tells a story of love, tradition, and economic inequality in a changing society. Its screening offered a poetic and poignant reflection on postcolonial realities, closing AfterImages on a resonant and contemplative note.
Event Details
Date: 19th - 21st June, 2025
Day One: 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Day Two: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Day Three: 5:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: 9b, Hakeem Dickson Drive, off T.F. Kuboye Road, Oniru, Lagos
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Dara Omotoso
Dara Omotosho is a Lagos-based cultural worker, writer, and curator whose practice explores the intersections of memory, language, and visual culture. His current work engages with non-fiction as a pliable form, experimenting with essay, moving image, and installation to unpack questions around place, history, and representation. Dara has contributed to a range of collaborative and research-led projects in Nigeria and internationally, and continues to develop modes of storytelling.
Dr Tinashe Mushakavanhu
Tinashe Mushakavanhu is a Zimbabwe-born writer, scholar, and curator whose work moves between literature, archives, and visual culture. He is an incoming Assistant Professor in African & African American Studies at Harvard University. Previously, he held a Junior Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford, where he convened symposia, curated exhibitions, and served as a judge for a major translation prize. His creative and academic practice focuses on African literary cultures, radical publishing, and the politics of the archive. He has held research and writing residencies across Africa, Europe, and the U.S., and is an alumni of Independent Curators International (ICI).
ABOUT MONANGAMBEE
Monangambee (formerly Is That Jazz) is a nomadic panafrican microcinema in Lagos, primarily based at the Jazzhole bookstore in Ikoyi, but also screening in a variety of other locations. Our screenings engage Black continental and diasporic filmmakers, as well as Third Cinema, and cinematic movements stemming from the Global South in general. We try as much as possible to have the filmmakers present, in person or virtually, as the screenings are followed by discussions.
ABOUT ART EXCHANGE: MOVING IMAGE
The Art Exchange: Moving Image programme is a collaborative and cross-cultural curatorial professional development and exhibition programme for early to mid-career visual arts curators from Sub-Saharan Africa working with moving image. The programme is supported by the British Council and organised by LUX, the UK agency for the support and promotion of artists working with moving image, Yinka Shonibare Foundation and Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, Nigeria.