In March Guest Artists Space Foundation welcomed artists Evan Ifekoya and Raymond Pinto to G.A.S. Lagos. The opportunities were initiated following a collaboration with Lagos Biennial who approached G.A.S. about hosting artists participating in the 2024 edition as a means of facilitating research, networking and project development opportunities ahead of their presentation at the bi-annual event currently scheduled for February 2024.

Carry My Not Knowing marks the end of a two-week-long residency for US based movement artist, Raymond Pinto.  In his rounding-off projects, the Lagos Biennial artist hosts a workshop, a live performance, and produces two short films. Pinto's approach to movement and sculpture challenges us to view the world through a new lens, where art is not just a product, but a collaborative and transformative process.

Guest Projects Digital alumni Chiizii has collaborated with Queercircle, London to produce a new multimedia work that occupies the Queercircle library and reading room. The piece titled Ogoni 9 uncovers the often-forgotten history of a group of activists known collectively as the Ogoni Nine who were killed by the Nigerian government after protesting the exploitation and degradation of their land by British oil companies. 

We are pleased to reintroduce you to Emma Prempeh, Seyi Adelakun, Mariam Aslam, Miriam Bettin, Antoinette Yetunde Oni, and Portia Zvavahera. From Lagos to London, they have each made significant contributions to contemporary art, culture, heritage and environment. Their respective practices explore themes of identity, culture, and community.

Five months following his residency, G.A.S. Fellow, Ofem Ubi shares a new body of work. In Back on Home Soil, the prolific photographer, writer, and filmmaker presents a powerful and deeply personal exploration of grief, which he approaches with remarkable vulnerability.

Performing artist and sculptor, Raymond Pinto, joins us this week for a residency at G.A.S. Lagos. With a focus on the African diaspora and queer and black archives, Raymond's work examines the nature of the dancing body and its impact on our aesthetic dimension. During his residency, Raymond will conduct research in preparation for his exhibition at the Lagos Biennial later in the year.

G.A.S. Foundation welcomes Evan Ifekoya as its latest artist-in-residence in February 2023. The Nigerian Born interdisciplinary artist's practice examines the politicisation of culture, society and aesthetics in their practice, sourcing material from historical archives and contemporary society to construct stories and experiences with text, sound and video. 

Contemporary visual artists, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Evan Ifekoya, and Raymond Pinto, are participating in residencies at G.A.S. Lagos leading up to the fourth edition of the Lagos Biennial. The Foundation is thrilled to be facilitating the artists' experiences of the city and creative processes as they prepare for their exhibitions at the 2023 edition of the Biennial.

Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist, Umar Rashid is a painter and installation artist whose work illustrates alternative historical narratives, most notably, his fictional Frenglish Empire (1648 - 1880). His reappropriations of world histories explore the intricacies of race, gender, class, and power. His chosen iconography is simultaneously evocative of contemporary and historical imagery.

In 2022 G.A.S. received a donation of a lifelong personal library collection from Professor John Picton and Sue Picton. Its scope includes the visual arts of Sub-Saharan Africa (sculpture, masquerade, textiles), publications dealing with history and archaeology (including Saharan rock art); as well as African American and Black British arts, and more. In 2023, the collection will continue its journey from the Picton family home in Evesham, England to Lagos, Nigeria where it will once again become a point of reference for those wishing to enrich and deepen their knowledge of African history and visual culture. 

The Politics of Fabrics brings together a new body of work developed by artist Samuel Nnorom during his residency at Guest Artists Space Foundation. The sculptural pieces, created almost entirely from pre-owned garments, include an ambitious 25ft site-specific intervention that will be hung on the exterior of the G.A.S. Lagos building.

G.A.S. began working collaboratively with Goodman Gallery in early 2022 following the Foundation's local launch in Nigeria. The resulting opportunities are funded through our Fellowship Platinum Partner donor package, a giving level used to directly support three residency fellowship awards in Nigeria over a three-year period with a focus on African and African Diaspora recipients. In this instance it allows artists who are either represented by or exhibiting with Goodman Gallery to complete a residency at G.A.S.