…Introduces New Category Prizes for Women, People With Disability And The Very Young!
By Tony Adibe
Nigeria’s biggest and longest running visual art festival, the annual Life In My City Art Festival (LIMCAF), is now offering an overall winner’s prize of N1M , effective from the 2023 Festival’s Gala and Award Night, scheduled to hold on Saturday, 28 October 2023.
NewsBits recalls that before now, the overall winner of the LIMCAF prize used to smile home with N.5milllion. But during the 2022 event which was held at the International Conference Centre of the IMT, Enugu it was announced that the LIMCAF Board would consider an upward review of the prizes in view of the economic changes in the country.
However, emerging from a meeting of the Board of Trustees recently, Art Director Dr. Ayo Adewunmi, announced that all other LIMCAF prizes have been
similarly increased.
For example, the Main Category Awards for the Best in Painting, Sculpture, Textile, Ceramics and Graphics, which used to attract a prize of N250, 000 will now earn N500,000 each for their producers, according to Dr. Adewunmi, in a release issued in Enugu by the Executive Director, LIMCAF, Mr. Kelvin Ejiofor.
Explaining that new Category Awards have been introduced, Adewunmi said such awards were for the “Most Creative Female Entry, the Most Promising Female Young Artist, and a Special Prize for Persons With Disability.”
The LIMCAF Art Director further explained that these new prize categories have been introduced to bring LIMCAF in line with international best practice “whereby females, the younger generation and persons with disability are provided special incentives to practice and participate fully in every area of human activity.”
He explained that in addition to the new special categories all the other category prizes are still open for the females to compete for. In addition to all these, Adewunmi said that there are still the Endowed Prizes, including the Justice Anthony Aniagolu Prize, which now earns N300,000, up from the previous N150,00.
He added that the other Endowed Prizes, including the Dr. Pius Okigbo, the Barrister Mfon Usoro and the VinMartin Ilo Prizes remained the same for now. Adewunmi, however, noted that a new Endowment, is the Fidelia Okoroafor Prize for the Most Promising Young Female Artist which will earn a young person not older than 18, N200,000.
He said: “All these mean that the overall total of prizes on offer now stands at N6.4million naira annually, a more than 100% increase. This does not include several other opportunity offers such as residences and international travel including especially the all-expenses-paid participation in the Dak’Art Biennale for the top six winning artists in each year.”
Life In My City Art Festival was founded in Enugu, in 2007 by Chief Robert Oji, CEO and founder of Rocana Nigeria Ltd., a publishing and outdoor advertising agency whose aim was to economically empower aspiring young artists and create avenues for the advancement of their careers through interaction with established artists, scholars, collectors and gallery owners, according to the Art Director.
Adewunmi recalled that Chief Oji’s other aim was to raise awareness and interest in art, so that young people graduating from the several schools offering tertiary education in art can find that “art is not only a noble profession but also an economically sustainable enterprise.”
He said that since its founding, the festival has held every year except for the COVID-19 year, 2020. “In those 16 years, about 4,000 young artists have participated in the festival, earning a total of about N19 million in prizes, from the Overall Prize through the Category Prizes, to the Endowed and the Consolation Prizes.
“In addition, nearly N28 million has been spent on 22 winning artists from the 2018, 2019 and 2021 Festivals, sponsored on the international travel experience and participation in the Dak’Art Biennale, courtesy of Emeritus Professor El Anatsui, a Patron of LIMCAF.
“LIMCAF’s workshops for art teachers and secondary school children taking in 100 young students with their teachers and coordinators every year have been designed to deepen the grassroots focus of the festival, which sees art as a strong social development tool for young people in our society,” the Art Director said.
Dr. Adewunmi explained further that the workshops will not only continue but that “LIMCAF will widen its net to take in many more talented young persons in the expectation that sponsorship and public support will grow, along with the appreciation of the mission and vision of LIMCAF.”
He disclosed that LIMCAF’s Chairman Elder K. U. Kalu and the entire Board spent some time during the meeting to express appreciation for the festival’s main Sponsors, MTN Foundation and Ford Foundation as well as the Patrons whose continuing interventions, support and encouragement have taken the festival to whole new and more impactful levels.
