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Atiku was retained in Nigeria due to the denial of his VISA by the German embassy. After the artist submitted the required documents with full support of the art project space Savvy Contemporary Berlin and the travel grant from Prince Claus Funds for Culture and Development - Netherlands, Jelili Atiku's VISA was denied. The ambiguous reason stated that ”the information submitted regarding the justification for the purpose and conditions of the intended stay was not reliable”. This is even more surprising, as Jelili Atiku just returned to Nigeria from a performance art tour through several prestigious institutions in Europe, including the Tate London.
This situation is becoming a rather common issue, especially with regard to African artists that receive a grant or a collaboration possibility in the West, but are still refused the possibility of fulfilling these opportunities. But this time, both artists, Lan Hungh and Jelili Atiku, with full support of the Co-lab editions program and Savvy Contemporary, decided to go beyond the hurdles posed by the embassy and to give continuity to their collaboration. After many Skype conversations, telephone calls, emails and exchanges of pictures and relevant documents, all spiced by bad internet connections, both artists embraced this issue as a motivation to develop their collaboration. This collaboration between Lan hungh and Jelili Atiku will be an epitome of inventing ways of being together.
Furthermore, Co-Lab editions 10 will proceed with its initial conceptual approach of testing both artists desire and ability to share creative authorship by engaging and allowing members of the audience to act as co-collaborators and creators of an art work. Such accomplishment cannot take place without formulating a last question:
What does it take to build a co-authorship work between artists and their audience, when both artists are situated in two different locations, 7,405 Km away from each other, in two different contexts, involved within two distinct groups of spectators?
07.10.2012, at 7 pm
JELILI ATIKU (Nigeria) and LAN HUNGH (Taiwan). Curator: Márcio Carvalho
