Nigerian artist Emeka Ogboh describes Lagos State of Mind III (2017/2020) as “a real and invented world in which the viewer is invited to look at Lagos through Berlin’s eye and vice versa.” This installation brings together field recordings made by the artist in these two cities, both of which he’s called home, over the past decade. The soundscape highlights specific aspects of daily life in those locales: car horns, engine roars, street music, voice-over announcements from Berlin’s train system, and conversations between African expatriates in introductory German. Connecting sound and place, this auditory collage explores how collective memory and histories of globalization are encoded and transmitted. A fictional transit map on the walls imagines a version of Berlin public transportation that connects to bus stops and transportation hubs in Lagos. Layering sonic landscapes and visual languages of movement, this work sits at the intersection of two worlds inhabited by an immigrant.
