Cultural Preservation & Archive Collaboration
Curator calls for preservation of Nigerian arts and cultural heritage through the Hakeem Shitta Photo and Cultural Archive, seeking institutional partnerships.
Esther Oladimeji, curator of the Hakeem Shitta Photo and Cultural Archive (HSPACA), has issued a call for the preservation and documentation of Nigerian arts and cultural heritage. The archive represents a crucial historical record of Nigeria's creative memory, containing over 6,000 images documenting the country's cultural, political and social life between 1981 and 1995. The archive covers 180 theatre productions, 81 concerts, 67 exhibitions and 326 human-interest situations, including festivals, regattas, street life documentation and visual records of the 1993 presidential election period. The collection features documentation of Nigerian poets, actors, dramatists, visual artists, dancers, filmmakers, essayists and journalists. The late Hakeem Shitta was an artist, photojournalist and cultural archivist whose work predated digital media, capturing Nigeria's artistic renaissance and political transitions before the internet age. The curator emphasizes that the archive is not merely a collection of historical photographs but a foundational piece of Nigeria's creative memory that meticulously documents the evolution of various artists and intellectuals over several decades. Oladimeji has called on government institutions, scholars and researchers within and outside Nigeria to network and collaborate with the archive. This collaborative approach aims to preserve history in Nigeria's arts and culture for future generations. The initiative highlights the critical importance of documentation for national memory, identity and global relevance of Nigerian cultural heritage.