Between Scars & Totems – Naomi Nwaobi
There is a profound vulnerability in letting go of perfection, especially when your medium is as unforgiving as clay. In her debut solo exhibition, Between Scars & Totems, artist Naomi Nwaobi leans into this exact friction. Abandoning the pursuit of flawless mastery, she turns to the potter’s wheel to excavate something much rawer: the physical […]
ART, ITEM 7 & DESIGN THINKING: IS LAGOS THE WRONG KIND OF INSPIRATION YOU NEED AS AN ARTIST?
Art, Item 7 & Design Thinking: Is Lagos the Wrong Kind of Inspiration You Need as an Artist? Rezlogue Couch Residency I (July 2026) with McQueen Pius; Artist, Designer, Serial Entrepreneur. So I was making art in Ile-Ife, and it was a small place where you could make your own community and stuff. But Lagos […]
Salah Hassan’s African Modernism: Beyond Alternative Modernities Discourse
Against the backdrop of South African artist Ernest Mancoba’s illustrious itinerant art career, spent mostly in exile, Salah Hassan examines what constitutes ‘African’, Modernism, and African Modernism. How are his questions useful for understanding African Contemporary Art today? Salah Hassan wants us to understand “Africa” as an elusive concept, carrying complex meanings for different audiences. […]
Rhea’s Street to Mbari: Jacob Lawrence and the Influence of the ‘International’ on Local Modernism
Between 1962 and 1964, renowned African American Artist Jacob Lawrence spent months in Ibadan and Osogbo, hosted by the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. In Lawrence words, “I became so excited then by all the new visual forms I found in Nigeria—unusual color combinations, textures, shapes, and the dramatic effect of light—that I felt an […]
Coates’ African Objects and Restitution: In the Thought of Achille Mbembe
At the National Museum in Lagos, there are a few empty pedestals with confrontational notes that ask, roughly, “British Museum, how far?” One of Teju Cole’s protagonists in Tremor (2024), during a university lecture, responds to a paternalistic questioning of calls for restitution. His response is reflective as he suggests that there must be new […]
Jonathan Chambalin – I’m looking at adaptability as symbolic of being Nigerian
Can you tell us about the project you were developing? I developed multiple projects during my time at GAS. One of them was Cactuses. In Nigerian geography and topography, cactuses are the most dominant and enduring type of horticulture we have because we really suck at maintenance. I’m looking at it as something synonymous with […]