Palais de Lomé in Togo is housed in the former Governor's Palace, a remnant of the country's colonial history © 2018 – Palais de Lomé
Togo has opened its first major contemporary art and culture centre. Uniquely for Africa, Palais de Lomé, which is housed in a restored colonial-era palace, was fully financed by the state.
“We have the opportunity to re-appropriate our heritage,” said the president of Togos national assembly, Dama Dramani, in French at the institutions inauguration on Friday. The event was attended by high-ranking officials including the Togolese president Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé, the countrys prime minister Komi Sélom Klassou, heads of Togos various ethnic groups as well as the prominent American artist Kehinde Wiley. “This is not just a restored building, it's an art centre of international standing that will bear witness to the diversity of national and pan-African cultural production,” Dramani said.
Set on the seafront of the Togolese capital, the Palais de Lomé boasts several exhibition spaces, as well as an 11-hectare botanical park with ancient trees, medicinal plants, a beehive and more than 40 species of birds. Lomé is the only capital in coastal west Africa to have a public park on the seafront; “everywhere else, such real estate has been built up, because its gold,” says Sonia Lawson the director of the Palais de Lomé and the driving force behind the project.
Palais de Lomé's 11-hectare park features these sculptures called Le Conseil des Sages (The Council of Elders) made of Togolese marble by the local artist Sadikou Oukpedjo Image: © Sadikou Oukpedjo
For the first time in its 120-year history, the colonial landmark formerly called the Governor's Palace will be accessible to the Togolese public. “It was a place of exclusion, a place that was closed and forbidden, now it is open to everyone,” Lawson says. Built at the turn of the 19th century by the German colonial powers as a residency for the governor, the building was taken over by French authorities after the First World War and then became a base for the Togolese state after the country gained independence in 1960. In the early 1990s it housed the prime ministers officer but lay abandoned for the next 20 years after political upheavals.
In 2014, Togos government commissioned a group of French architecture firms Segond-Guyon, Archipat and Sara Consult, as well as the landscape designer Frédéric Reynauld to restore the building and its grounds. The architects worked exclusively with local contractors, hiring ten Togolese companies to carry out the design. The buildings coastal location is a challenge, the architects say. Corrosion of the steel frame due to exposure to the salty sea air will need to be mitigated and the building's exterior will require repainting every three years.
While the government footed the XOF 2.2bn ($3.7m) bill for the renovation, Lawson hopes to attract corporate sponsorship to cover the operating costs. “We want to decrease the budget connected to the government to around half.” She is setting up an advisory board as well as a Friends of the Palais de Lomé scheme to help improve access to sponsorship, with the specific goal of involving leading cultural figures from the continent. “Pan-African positioning is very important for us,” she says. Ticket prices will cost less than $2; one day a month will be free of charge. School children and university students will be able to partake in educational workshops around the exhibitions as well as guided tours of the park.
The Palais de Lomé opens to the public on 28 November with five inaugural exhibitions. Chief among them is Togo of the Kings (until May 2020), presenting artefacts belonging to the kingdoms, chieftaincies and traditional communities of Togo. The objects were sourced directly from their current owners and have rarely been shown in an exhibition context. Another show pays tribute to the work of the acclaimed Togolese designer Kossi Aguessy who died of a cancer aged just 40 in 2012. After taking a degree from Central Saint Martins in London, Aguessy worked for Phillip Starck in Paris before setting up his own studio in 2008. His amorphous forms and focus on sustainability caught the attention of the Museum of Modern Art and Design in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris; his works subsequently entered their collections. The Palais de Lomés exhibition is the artists first on the continent.
Royal garments in the exhibition Togo of the Kings at the Palais de Lomé © The Art Newspaper/Julia Michalska
Meanwhile, the centres emphasis on Pan-African integration is underscored by the exhibition Three Borders, which brings together works by the Togolese artists Tété Azankpo and Emmanuel Sogbadji, with Serge Clottey and Issah Al-Hassan from Ghana, Prince Toffa, Edwige Aplogan and Euloge Glélé from Benin and Kelani Abass from Nigeria. Coming to terms with these countries colonial pasts is a common theme in their works. Photographs documenting the reconstruction of the Palais de Lomé are the subject of the fourth exhibition in the Palais, tracing the institutions journey from a crumbling relic of colonial rule to the distinguished artistic platform it has become today. Lomé +, an exhibition focused on the everyday life of the Togolese featuring a video triptych by Elom 20ce among others, will open in January (until November 2021).
“The Palais de Lomés kind of public-private partnership can set an example for the rest of Africa,” says Azu Nwagbogu, the director of the African Artists Foundation and the Lagos Photo Festival. “Its about hosting the world rather than being somebody elses guest. We want to tell our history from our own perspective. Hosting is about controlling what people see, creating a narrative around the display by being able to dictate what we think is important,” he says. The Palais de Lomés “x factor” is the unique draw of the lush city of Lomé as well as the spotlight on biodiversity, he says. “Our planet is dying, so the park is another element that makes the Palais unique and forward-looking.”
Kossi Aguessy's exhibition at the Palais de Lomé © The Art Newspaper/Julia Michalska
Indeed, the arrival of the Palais de Lomé appears to have already spawned other artistic initiatives in the country. Sandra Agbessi, the curator of the Kossi Aguessy exhibition, is planning to relaunch her artist residency, Le LaboratoRead More – Source
