Introduction to the Zeitz MOCAA and UWC 2026 Museum Fellowship Programme
On April 26th, 2025, G.A.S. Lagos hosted an information session for the 2026 edition of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) and University of the Western Cape (UWC) Museum Fellowship Programme. The session offered a valuable opportunity for aspiring museum and arts professionals to learn more about the programme’s scope, application process, and the kind of academic and professional development it supports. Designed for early-career practitioners based on the African continent, the year-long fellowship combines practical experience at Zeitz MOCAA with academic study at UWC, with a strong emphasis on curatorial practice, heritage studies, conservation, and museology.
The session opened with a welcome address from Dr Greer Valley, Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial Affairs at Zeitz MOCAA. She provided an in-depth overview of the fellowship’s structure, highlighting its unique integration of curatorial mentorship and critical academic training. Emphasizing the programme’s pan-African orientation, Dr Valley noted that it aims to develop future leaders in the museum field, individuals who will shape and redefine cultural institutions across the continent and beyond. As part of her presentation, she screened a short video introducing the six fellows currently enrolled in the 2025 cohort. The video offered glimpses into their experiences as they embarked on a rigorous journey of research and practice across curating, exhibition design, public programming, and institutional development, all grounded in African and diasporic perspectives. Attendees were also introduced to past fellow-led projects from the 2024 cohort, which ranged from critical exhibition interventions to community-based initiatives.
Professor Rory Bester, an art historian and Associate Professor at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), delivered the following presentation focused on the academic section of the programme. He outlined the university’s role in supporting the fellowship, detailing the coursework, academic expectations, and degrees offered. Professor Bester emphasized how UWC provides an intellectual framework that complements the hands-on training at Zeitz MOCAA, ensuring that fellows remain critically engaged with questions of curatorship throughout the year-long programme.
Following the presentations, the floor was opened for questions, allowing attendees to engage directly with the speakers on topics ranging from eligibility and the application process to the types of research interests best suited for the programme.
The information session concluded with a panel discussion led by Dr. Greer Valley and Professor Rory Bester, in conversation with Jess Castellote, Director at the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Pan-Atlantic University (Nigeria); G.A.S. Alumnus and Digital Heritage Specialist at MOWAA, Femi Johnson; and multidisciplinary artist Bolatito Aderemi-Ibitola. The discussion explored broader questions around curatorial training on the African continent, offering prospective applicants insights into the intentions behind the programme. Panelists reflected on mentorship, institutional access, and the evolving responsibilities of curators working within African and diasporic contexts. The discussion also underscored the importance of collaboration between academic and museum spaces in shaping the next generation of cultural workers.
The open call for the Museum Fellowship is live and closes on 30 June 2025. To learn more and apply, visit the Zeitz MOCAA website.
Event Details
Date: 26th April, 2025
Time: 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Location: 9b, Hakeem Dickson Drive, off TF Kuboye Road, Oniru, Lagos.
About the Speakers
Dr Greer Valley
Dr Greer Valley is the Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial Affairs of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), and Co-convenor of the Zeitz MOCAA and University of the Western Cape (UWC) Museum Fellowship Programme. Dr Valley is a curator, writer, and researcher based in Cape Town, South Africa. She currently serves as the chairperson of the Africa South Arts Initiative (ASAI) and as vice president of the KwaZulu-Natal Society of the Arts council. Greer has held several prestigious fellowships, including a curatorial fellowship at the Institute for Creative Arts in 2018 and the Getty Foundation MAHASSA fellowship in 2019. She also served on the Dak’art Biennale selection committee and, in 2022, curated the exhibition Unsettled as a guest curator at the Biennale. In 2024, she was awarded the Chancellor’s Female Academic Leadership Fellowship at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Her research focuses on curatorial approaches that address African colonial histories within institutional and exhibition contexts. Greer has published papers and chapters in several international publications on visual cultures that address these and related themes. She has worked across the visual arts, architecture, and design sectors in South Africa, the Netherlands, and the UK. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture, an Honours in Visual Studies, a Masters in Visual Art, and a PhD in Art Historical Studies.
Image courtesy of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) and University of the Western Cape (UWC).
Professor Rory Bester
Rory Bester is an art historian working at the intersection of historical studies, creative practice, and radical pedagogy. He is especially interested in the curatorial as an expanded, embodied and equalising practice that is able to listen, read, research, and historicise in and out of the sensory, spatial, and choreographic. Through multimodal pedagogies of witnessing, his research focuses on new languages of activism and solidarity in the fields of artistic, heritage and museum practice.
Bester’s curatorial work includes Democracy’s Images: Photography and Visual Art After Apartheid (BildMuseet, Umeå); Kwere Kwere / Journeys into Strangeness (Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town); Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life (with Okwui Enwezor, International Center of Photography, New York), for which the exhibition won the Lucie Award for Best Photography Exhibition and catalogue won the German Photo Book Prize; and A Short History of South African Photography (Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia). In addition to his curatorial work, he has been an executive producer for two ground-breaking music and television projects: The Thula Project / An Album of South African Lullabies, which was South Africa’s first album of indigenous lullabies; and Right Through the Arts, a six-part documentary television series about artistic creativity and experimentation broadcast on SABC2. He has published extensively on South African art, contributing to publications produced by, amongst others, BildMuseet (Umeå), Christie’s (London), Documenta (Kassel), Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), Fotografia Europea (Reggio Emilia), Fotomuseum Winterthur, Iziko South African National Gallery (Cape Town), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Prince Claus Fund (Amsterdam), Studio Museum (Harlem), and White Box (New York).
Image courtesy of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) and University of the Western Cape (UWC).
Jess Castellote
Jess Castellote (Zaragoza, Spain, 1956). After working for years in Nigeria as an architect and project manager, he completed a doctoral degree in Art History at UNED (Madrid), and he is currently the Director of the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos. He is also a founding member of the Foundation for Contemporary and Modern Visual Arts and of the Society for Art Collection. He has authored, co-authored or edited four books on Nigerian Art. He combines his professional work with an intense involvement in several not-for-profit organizations promoting development and educational projects in the country.
Image courtesy of Art Report Africa.
Femi Johnson
Femi Johnson is a Digital Heritage Specialist at the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), where he leverages science and technology to preserve and understand African heritage. Through groundbreaking work at the MOWAA Digital Lab, Femi has joined efforts to digitally reconstruct the Benin Bronze Plaques and recreate the 16th Century Audience Hall in which they were housed, from a fragmented corpus, dispersed round the world.
Femi’s expertise has been recognized through his role as a guest professor at the University of Arts Hamburg, where he explored the concept of impermanence through the lens of art and science. Additionally, he spoke at the Ars Electronica Festival 2023, in a discussion on “Re-build Together: Digital, Human, and Arts-driven Innovation in Africa,” focusing on the role of innovation in re-shaping narratives and fostering collaboration between Europe and Africa. His work has also earned him collaborations with various institutions such as the Swiss Benin Initiative, EUNIC, Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, the G.A.S. Foundation, The Goethe Institute, German Archeological Institute, Filmhaus Basel, Institute of Benin Studies and the National Commision for Museums and Monuments Nigeria.
Image courtesy of Femi Johnson.
Bolatito Aderemi-Ibiola
Bolatito Aderemi-Ibitola is a trans-disciplinary artist working primarily in time based art, interactivity and performance. Her work focuses on the intersections of race, gender, and ethnicity. Along with her artistic practice, Aderemi-Ibitola also works as a devised theatre practitioner, performance studies scholar and teaching artist. Bolatito Aderemi-Ibitola earned her Masters in Performances Studies from Tisch School of the Performing Arts, New York University and holds a Bachelors in Communication Arts with a focus in Television/Film Production and a minor in Political Science.
Image courtesy of British Council.
About the Institutions
Zeitz MOCAA
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) is a public not-for-profit institution that collects, preserves, researches and exhibits contemporary art from Africa and its Diaspora; conceives and hosts international exhibitions; develops supporting educational, discursive and enrichment programmes; encourages intercultural understanding; and strives towards access for all. The museum’s galleries feature rotating temporary exhibitions with a dedicated space for the permanent collection. The institution also includes the BMW Centre for Art Education and The Atelier, a museum residency programme for artists living and working in Cape Town.
Zeitz MOCAA is situated at the Silo District, South Arm Road, V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa, and is open Monday through Sunday, 10 am to 6 pm (with last entry at 5.30 pm). zeitzmocaa.museum
University of the Western Cape (UWC)
The University of the Western Cape (UWC) was founded in 1960 and occupies a unique space in the South African higher education landscape. It is a dynamic institution committed to excellence in learning, teaching, research and innovation in a globally competitive environment whilst remaining true to the values and ethos that have shaped its identity as a university rooted in serving the public good. uwc.ac.za
This event was hosted by Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in collaboration with G.A.S. Foundation.
