In the year 1443, ships with a special cargo arrived in Lagos: shortly after, the first Africans were sold at the village gates. Despite this dark shadow over the town of Lagos, the Town Council decided to create a Memory Space for these first Africans, made slaves in Portuguese territory.

The biggest challenge was to create a museum with content in different densities and layers, where technology was less prominent but adding value, creating a more enriching experience for visitors.

Based on this logic of different densities and layers, and together with P-06 Atelier, we created an exhibition that works without recourse to digital content.

On top of this exhibition, with a more physical, analogue and elegantly designed approach, a subtle digital layer has been added, found in screens hidden in shop windows and display totems.

Visitors only notice them when the digital content emerges out of nothing. We call them “ghost screens”, as they only come to life when, for example, a 500-year-old memory is suddenly revealed, or a character winks at us.

For visitors wanting to deepen their knowledge and interact more with the content, a third layer has been added, accessible through Augmented Reality. Visitors are invited to use one of the tablets available at the exhibition entrance to point at maps, illustrations and suitably identified objects in the exhibition to reveal new stories, such as the animated “Cantino Map”, a reconstructed ivory spoon, or seeing the development of the town of Lagos over the centuries.

Sometimes technology is a means to break down physical and/or mental barriers, and that is true with this project. The Slave Market building cannot be adapted for people with mobility difficulties, so to overcome this architectural difficulty, we developed a 3D immersive visit where the entire exhibition is accessible through virtual reality glasses.