BOYS’ QUARTERS PROJECT SPACE.
Boys’ Quarters Project Space is a contemporary art gallery that opened on 31st May, 2014 in downtown Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Boys’ Quarters shows work by local Niger Delta artists as well as a national and international programme of artists. The space offers a conceptual and critically-engaged intervention into Port Harcourt’s visual art scene. The works commissioned and shown through Boys’ Quarters produce fresh imagery and more in-depth reflections on Niger Delta inner-life and environments. In effect helping re-imagine the region. The relationship between self and environment is the underlying exploratory engine and to this end our intervention into the global art scene serves to deconstruct and further expand definitions of environmentalism.
The Boys’ Quarters’ is the colloquial name given to the servants quarters, a post-colonial hangover and an ever-present feature of modern West African life. The place where, to this day, servants and sometimes extended family members live. We believe that in order to transcend limitation and excel - a Nigerian pre-occupation - we must run towards and not away from The Boys’ Quarters. We must investigate ourselves, go inwards as a society then reflect and expand upon who we are from our core. Our true wealth is in the people at every level of society.
The gallery is currently situated in the old offices of the late writer, activist and Nobel-Nominee, Ken Saro-Wiwa, in downtown Port Harcourt, the capital of the country’s oil industry. However we are currently raising funds to build a brand new space on a quiet, bucolic, centrally-located property that is a 5-minute walk from Ken and Maria Saro-Wiwa’s Port Harcourt home. The space will allow us to show and make art in a more peaceful, meditative, flora-forward environment. And we will be able to offer artist residencies, workshops, lectures and food offerings. Please support our programme and help us build this much needed space in Port Harcourt by sending us your US tax dollars or simply donating to the Mangrove Arts Foundation. Just click here or visit the donate page.
To learn more about our past and current exhibitions, visit our website at www.boysquartersprojectspace.com.
Current location: 24 Aggrey Road, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria
Opening Hours: Thurs-Sat, 11am-6pm
Current Show: “Dirty Laundry” by Wana Udobang