Karimah Ashadu: Machine Boys

Karimah Ashadu’s 2024 video _Machine Boys_ explores the informal economy in Lagos, Nigeria, that centers on okadas, commercial motorcycles that serve as unofficial modes of public transportation in the city. Okadas were banned in 2022 for the cited reasons of rising crime rates and traffic violations. However, drivers continue to operate, navigating government, police, and local harassment in order to support themselves and their families. _Machine Boys_ chronicles their precarious and dangerous work. Ashadu’s film is as kinetic and disorienting as the drivers’ daily lives. Shot within a crowd of bikes through kicked-up dust and roaring engines, it constructs a nuanced portrait of these workers. They recount the pressure they face from authorities and the constant threat of injury and even death. Despite the danger, okadas have afforded drivers a community in Lagos, one full of a masculine self-determination that Ashadu’s film regards as both constructed and vulnerable. British-born Nigerian artist Karimah Ashadu was raised in Lagos until her adolescence and then trained as a painter. Now based between Hamburg and Lagos, she focuses her work predominantly on Nigeria’s socio-economic and socio-cultural conditions. Her films showcase both her position as a keen observer of the communities she highlights and her close eye for Lagos’s cityscape. _Karimah Ashadu: Machine Boys_ is curated by Giampaolo Bianconi, Dittmer Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art. This showing of Ashadu’s video is presented in conjunction with an exhibition of her work, [_Tendered_](https://renaissancesociety.org/exhibitions/564/-karimah-ashadu-tendered/), at the Renaissance Society, September 12–November 1, 2026.