Title:
Apapa Amusement Park

Year:
2013

Running time:
2 minutes 38 seconds

Location:
Lagos, Nigeria

Format:
HD digital film, colour with sound

‘Apapa Amusement Park’ is filmed with a small rotational device which alters perception. Handmade from found materials, the ‘device is inspired by the location’s rotund geometry..

Apapa Amusement Park, once a fully operational playground in Lagos and a familiar childhood stomping ground of the artist, is now abandoned. The film captures youths playing football – momentarily animating the blank space as the eagerness of the game hints at the former fun-filled atmosphere of the park.

As the mechanism is turned by hand, it offers a panorama of the playground. Circles of concrete which once acted as foundations for the ground’s features, now redundantly divide absent space.

The moving image is intercepted by the mechanism’s convex glass, moving simultaneously with the camera to magnify aspects of the footage – almost like a stutter. This pattern is further enhanced by the editing technique; the moving image is divided into seconds, and then pieced together again to form an almost fluid but disjointed picture.

This somewhat playful shift in perspective is almost like a game of tag. As one scene jumps awkwardly to the next, the abruptness essentially becomes a reflection of the playground’s fragmented spatiality.