Since 2015, Andrew Esiebo has captured in his photo series Mutations the urban transformation of Lagos— Africa’s most populous city, whose population is projected to exceed 30 million by 2035. In Esiebo’s photographs, informal structures, colonial legacies, large-scale infrastructures, and small-scale, improvised interventions coalesce into a dense urban fabric. Despite inadequate planning and growing displacement, residents continue to assert their place in the city: Pedestrians carve walkways where sidewalks are absent, highways become parking spaces for container trucks, and demolished settlements are rebuilt time and again by their resilient inhabitants. The photo series sheds light on these everyday practices of spatial appropriation, foregrounding the simultaneity of order and improvisation, destruction and resilience. At its core, the work is not about spectacular urban development, but about the daily will to survive with which Lagosians create a fragmented yet vibrant urbanity. MAK
