The exhibition Urban Cadence focused on photographs of two twenty-first century cities: Lagos, Nigeria, and Johannesburg, South Africa. The Gund Gallery of Oberlin College in Gambier, Ohio was filled with over sixty artworks by nine photographers (Fig. 1).
Magee cultivated the motif of the cadence throughout the exhibit. Upon entering the freestanding Gund Gallery, built in 2011, the viewer was met with a monitor silently screening a playlist of Nigerian and South Africa music videos with headphones attached. At the back of the exhibit, a resource room contained books, as well as headphones and tablets providing access to various historical and contemporary genres of popular music across Africa. Thus, the exhibition was buttressed at each end with music.
Through comprehensive wall labels, Magee developed variants on the cadence theme with references to with references to visual rhythms, stillness, frenzy, and ebb and flow of movement within the cityscapes....