Nobody builds anything in Lagos without a certain kind of stubbornness.
The city is generous with its energy and demanding with everything else. The traffic, the infrastructure, the cost of doing things properly, the sheer pace at which Lagos moves and changes and demands that you move and change with it. To build something here that is considered, that has a point of view, that refuses to cut corners because the corners are tempting and the shortcuts are always available; that requires a particular kind of commitment.
We think about this often. What it means to build something in Lagos that is not in a hurry. That does not sacrifice quality for volume. That is willing to be smaller and more intentional rather than larger and diluted.
Alali was never going to be everything to everyone. It was going to be exactly right for the people who found it. A studio with a specific aesthetic and a specific standard. A gallery that takes the work it shows seriously. A space where the experience of being a guest is considered from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave with something you made.
Lagos rewards that kind of thinking eventually. The city has a sharp eye for what is genuine and what is performing genuineness. Its residents have seen enough of both to know the difference immediately. You cannot fake a well-designed room. You cannot fake an instructor who actually knows their craft. You cannot fake the feeling of a session that was put together by people who care about it.
We care about it. That has always been the simplest way to describe what we are doing here.
Building something in Lagos is not easy. We would not want it to be. The difficulty is part of what makes it worth doing, and part of what makes the thing you build at the end of it mean something.
We are still building.
ALALI.