Platformtwo

Sunday night in Lagos, Femi Kuti playing at the Shrine club.

The stage reverberates with funky, groovy and danceable music. A trio of supple ladies enters the stage, gyrating their bodies in the most sensual way, to the applause of an exuberant audience.

Born June 1962, in Lagos, the son of legendary Nigerian Afro-Beat pioneer Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Femi is a musical icon and a worthy successor to his father. Nimble footed, humorous on stage but hard-hitting in both his lyrics and talk, Femi has added a new dimension to the polyrhythmic sound in which his father specialized. Through flawless performances he has added the exuberance of young Lagos as well as the sound of American dance music such as house.

He first rose to fame in 1985 when he appeared in place of his father at the Hollywood Bowl after Fela was arrested at Lagos Airport on a dubious fraud charge. Femi delighted the audience with the same strident saxophone style and self-assured stage presence of his father. By 1987, he had formed his own band, the Positive Force, and their debut album “No Cause for Alarm�? was released on Polygram Nigeria. It was an effective blend of soul and jazz with driving percussion and sociopolitical lyrics. He says of his music: “It reflects in my everyday living. I am a stronger believer in love.�?

platformtwo backstage f_kuti_(031).mpeg

one of Nigeria’s foremost sculptors, one of the creators of the workshop “Made in Nigeria”.
Olu Amoda is the founder of Riverside Art and Design Studio, Lagos. He studied art at Auchi Polytechnic, then Bendel State, Nigeria, and in 1983, he majored in sculpture. Since then he has worked as a professional artist. He also teaches sculpture, drawing and modeling at Yaba College of Technology, Lagos. Amoda was once the president of the Lagos Chapter of the Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA). He has won a number of distinguished prizes in art, received numerous residencies, and has exhibited in Nigeria, Germany, Canada and United States.

http://www.africaresource.com/exh/amoda/exogu.htm

Our hosts took as to a various scrap yards around the city, each of them almost a city in itself, surely not a place for unusual visitors, but we had a very warm welcome by most of the people working there, and everyone tried to sell us tons of heavy metal sheets, all we where after was a bid of metal wire and some steel profiles.

Design workshop in collaboration with British Council, Yaba College of Technology and Royal College of Art, Platformtwo /Design Products Department.

The British Council has established new links between the next generation of designers from the UK and Nigeria by inviting six students from UK’s leading post-graduate art and design college, the Royal College of Art, to collaborate with students from Nigeria’s foremost arts college, the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos.
This interdisciplinary workshop that will open at the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, on Monday 16th through February 8th 2006, will investigate how designs can be based locally but have a global appeal. Using the skills of local artisans such as street welders and the design ingenuity of the students, this workshop aims at raising the importance of design as a commercial business and cultural medium and to strengthen the networks between producers and designers in Nigeria.
Internationally renowned product and furniture designers, Tom Dixon and Martino Gamper, as well as Nigeria’s own sculptor and lecturer, Olu Amoda, will guide the students. In addition to students from Yaba College of Technology, the workshop will involve two of the finalists from the British Council’s International Young Design Entrepreneur of the Year Award (IYDEY) 2005.
The National Gallery of Art, Abuja, Nigeria, and Virgin Atlantic have generously supported this project.

some facts :
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ni.html

http://www.ladsoflagos.com/Facts.htm

Population
Nigeria: 130,000,000
Lagos city: 10,013,600 and raising

Government
Parliamentary democracy, not every one agrees about that fact.

Ethnic Groups
Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country, is composed of more than 250 ethnic groups; the following are the most populous and politically influential: Hausa and Fulani 29%, Yoruba 21%, Igbo (Ibo) 18%, Ijaw 10%, Kanuri 4%, Ibibio 3.5%, Tiv 2.5%

Languages
English (official), Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo (Ibo), Fulani

Literacy
68%

Religion
Muslim 50%, Christian 40%, indigenous beliefs 10%

Climate
Average highs and lows for Lagos are 31� C and 23� C in January and 28� C and 23� C in June. Mean annual precipitation at Lagos is about 1,900 millimeters; at Ibadan, only about 140 kilometers north of Lagos, mean annual rainfall drops to around 1,250 millimeters. Moving north from Ibadan, mean annual rainfall in the west is in the range of 1,200 to 1,300 millimeters.
Lagos climate on the other hand is dry and slightly humid with temperature varying between 32 and 35 degrees centigrade.
The Nigerian climate is generally tropical and wet, with well defined wet and dry seasons. Nights are cool and temperatures will drop from 43�C (109�F) in January day, to 4�C (39�F) in the evening. The rainy season is from April to October. Harmattan winds blows across from the Sahara Desert during the dry season.

GDP Growth Rate
1.6%

Inflation
12%

Imports
machinery, chemicals, transport equipment, manufactured goods, food and live animals

Exports
petroleum and petroleum products 95%, cocoa, rubber

Trading Partners
USA, EU, and Japan

Industries
crude oil, coal, tin, columbite, palm oil, peanuts, cotton, rubber, wood, hides and skins, textiles, cement and other construction materials, food products, footwear, chemicals, fertilizer, printing, ceramics, steel

Geography
Nigeria has borders with Niger to the north, Chad (across Lake Chad) to the northeast, Cameroon to the east and Benin to the west. To the south, the Gulf of Guinea is indented by the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. The country�s topography and vegetation vary considerably. The coastal region is a low-lying area of lagoons, sandy beaches and mangrove swamps, which merges into an area of rainforest where palm trees grow to over 30m (100ft). From here, the landscape changes to savannah and open woodland, rising to the Central Jos Plateau at 1800m (6000ft). The northern part of the country is desert and semi-desert, marking the southern extent of the Sahara.
provide by: http://www.worldroom.com

After our very inspiring and interesting trip to Jaipur / India, the second group of students left for Lagos / Nigeria.

Once arrived in Nigeria we had a very warm ( 30°) welcome by our hosts: British Council, Yaba College of Technology & Students, Olu Amoda.

Lagos is definitely a characteristic city, not quite easy to but it in words, yet, a big “WHOW”! for now.

Being unaccustomed to the dry weather of India, most of us left home with out lip balm, and it showed.

The traffic in India is really bad. They have every kind of transportation,
and it’s hard to imagine how bad it is only with a photo…
you should see the movie clip.
The sound of horn never stops, even at night.
traffic.MOV
The sound in this film really reminds me of India…

very eco-friendly….
The “taste” of ceramic cup is really special.
When you drink the soup in ceramic cup meanwhile you “taste” the ceramic cup.
It reminds me the feeling that using wood spoon to eat yogurt.

We drank 4~5 cups of chai everyday, at different time, different places.
The chai at different places has its own flavor. They are all different…

anyone in Jaipur who wan’t to pop by this shop, here is the sign and business card (may need to read hindi).

this is the owner of the shop hand making a stencil by hand from shim steel all cut with hammer and chisel.

a couple of the stencil he made.

the shop also doubles as a locksmiths.

Masala Chai

1-1/2 cups water
1 inch stick of cinnamon
8 cardomom pods
8 whole cloves
2/3 cup milk
6 tsp. sugar (or to taste)
3 teaspoons any unperfumed loose black tea

Put 1-1/2 cups water in saucepan. Add the cinnamon, cardomom, and cloves and bring to a boil. Cover, turn heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the milk and sugar and bring to a simmer again. Throw in the tea leaves, cover, and turn ff the heat. After 2 minutes, strain the tea into two cups and serve immediately.

(Madhur Jaffrey’s)

to get into the true spirt of india you must drink no less than five cups a day. 

Here is Santosh demonstrating how people in India say yes by wobbling their heads.
SANTOSH1.MPG

Greetje and me went to visit the marble workshop which was about 30 minutes drive into the south of Jaipur. They had a really nice house there where the family lived with the workshop to the rear of the property.

The men loaded a huge piece of marble onto their lathe and proceeded to turn it into Greetje bowl. I loved his health and safety outfit - a scarf tied round his head to dull out the huge noise and a pair of everyday specs - there were chunks of marble flying everywhere . . . It didn’t take him that long to turn the rough outside shape and then then to extract the middle section of the bowl.
As he turned the bowl we were invited inside the house by the women - it was amazing - everything was made out of marble - including the tv stand and clock.

The marble carving technique is a slow, but very precise process. The process is especially slow when the type of stone the craftsmen work with is tough. Because of the slow and expensive process, the students choose to create an object by marble turning. In this manufacturing technique the stone is turning in a lath and the craftsman carves in a spinning stone. With this technique you can only design a symmetrical object, but the process is easier, faster and cheaper. With the objective of creating a new market for the handcraft people in mind, this production technique seemed the more viable.

One of the nicest things about India . . .

One of the highlights of our India expedition.
Camels have big teeth, smelly breath and huge feet.
We were lucky enough to take a ride on a cart pulled by this camel. Quite a wobbly ride but fun all the same. I think Martino had the best view.

As the favourite medium for Indian sculptors and architects, marble has become a cultural symbol of tradition and refined taste. Its extremely varied and colourful patterns make it a favourite decorative material.
In folklore, marble is associated with an astrological sign. Pure white marble is an emblem of purity. It is also an emblem of immortality, and an insurer of success in education.