LUDI is a catalyst for human(e)-centred, inclusive, liveable, and sustainable urban development across African cities. We mobilise people, knowledge, and systems through advocacy, experimentation, and cross-sector collaboration to strengthen urban governance and advance equitable urban transformation. Our work bridges research, policy, and practice, creating spaces where diverse urban actors can collectively shape more just and resilient cities.
One component of this mission is the LUDI Library. The Library responds to the fragmentation of scholarship and practice-based knowledge on African urbanism and architecture. By curating and centralising key texts, research outputs, and critical resources, it provides a structured and accessible knowledge platform for students, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. In doing so, it strengthens intellectual continuity, supports evidence-informed decision-making, and deepens critical engagement with the specific spatial, social, and governance dynamics shaping African cities.

The Recovery Plan brings to the AAL Lab Affiliates Network a distinctive model of cultural infrastructure rooted in convening, research activation, and Afro-diasporic knowledge exchange. Based in Florence, the organisation has developed a dynamic practice that connects exhibitions, archival inquiry, public programming, and community-led dialogue, while also exploring scalable approaches to documentation, publishing, and long-term research platforms. Its participation in the network strengthens a shared commitment to transnational collaboration and to building more expansive frameworks for African and Afro-diasporic libraries, archives, and artistic research.

OH Institute emerged from a simple reality: over the years, OH Gallery’s work has consistently exceeded the gallery format. Presenting artworks was never the end goal—our practice has also been about producing knowledge, building critical tools, and strengthening the conditions that allow local scenes to author their own narratives. The demands we encountered, archives at risk, fragmented resources, lack of shared frameworks, limited access to professional tools, made one thing clear: a dedicated public-interest structure was needed.
After three years of preparation, we founded OH INSTITUTE as a public-interest organisation responding to a structural gap: ecosystem-building remains insufficient in the face of current and future challenges, while the frameworks, tools, and methodologies required to strengthen it are still scarce and not widely accessible. OH Institute develops long-term programmes, shared working frameworks, and practical tools, while supporting key stakeholders, including public institutions, in capacity building and cultural sovereignty.
The Institute’s activities are structured around six pillars: research and archives; library and publishing; education and mediation; residencies; skills mapping and referral; and third-party missions focused on support, ecosystem structuring, and capacity transfer.

Last week, we welcomed adeoluwa oluwajoba, a Lagos-based mixed media artist and a recipient of the G.A.S. Fellowship Award 2026, for a residency at G.A.S. Lagos. Working across painting, collage, and photographic printmaking, adeoluwa’s practice examines the transfer and reproduction of images, exploring how visual fragments can be layered to create intricate and often disjointed scenes of bodies and landscapes. His work investigates the shifting relationships between image, meaning, and spatial experience.

G.A.S. Foundation is pleased to welcome Olutomi Kassim, a UK-based academic researcher and interdisciplinary artist, for a residency at G.A.S. Lagos as a recipient of the G.A.S. Fellowship Award 2026. Olutomi’s practice sits at the intersection of scholarly research, performance, and textile-based art, examining how artistic practice can function as a catalyst for civic dialogue and social transformation. Her current work explores the role of cultural production as a form of “soft power” capable of addressing post-colonial governance challenges and encouraging communal reflection on justice, memory, and democratic futures.

Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation, in partnership with the Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.), is pleased to announce the pilot edition of the G.A.S. Critical Writing Workshop, an initiative designed to support the professional and critical development of emerging local art writers, researchers and cultural practitioners. This edition will explore critical art writing practices while examining how writing can function as a tool for activism, encouraging readers to ask questions, challenge dominant narratives, and engage more deeply with the social and political contexts that shape contemporary art. Structured as a three-day intensive programme, the workshop will take place at G.A.S. Lagos from 25th to 27th March 2026 and will provide practical training for selected paticipants. Through a series of workshops, readings, and lectures led by current resident Olutomi Kassim, in collaboration with other industry professionals, participants will develop essential writing skills for navigating and contributing impactful and thought-provoking contemporary art discourse.

Join us at G.A.S. Lagos on March 12th, 2026, for AgroArt: (Agri)cultural Production, a presentation of research and reflections on the intersections of art, technology, and agricultural cultivation by current resident Ryan Tenney. The event will begin with an overview of his residency, including his immersion in building relationships with local farmers and plants at the G.A.S. Farm House in Ikiṣẹ. During this time, he explored sustainable practices and developed paintings that incorporate solar panels and microcontrollers alongside other experimental prototypes.

The AAL Lab and Affiliates Network brings together Africa-based libraries, archival initiatives, independent publishers, and global institutions that support and champion this work. This page highlights the members who form the network, connecting across locations and practices to share resources, knowledge, and collaboration. Each entry includes the member or organization, their location, network type, and key contact or representative.

On 22nd January 2026, as part of her ongoing residency at G.A.S., Lagos-based multidisciplinary artist Fiyin Koko facilitated a community-based workshop for female students from St. John’s Primary School, Ikiṣẹ. The session introduced them to the joy of play and creativity, offering a hands-on opportunity to explore kite-making and experiment with design. The workshop formed part of Fiyin’s five-week residency, during which she has been based primarily at the G.A.S. Farm House in Ikiṣẹ. Her research explores play, memory, and the lived experiences of women today, translating both personal and shared stories into tangible, sensory experiences through sculpture and other media.

From June to November 2025, The Short Century Intensive jointly presented by Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation and Yinka Shonibare Foundation (Y.S.F.) brought together U.S. fellows Pujan Karambeigi, Miatta Kawinzi, sadé powell, Cosmo Whyte, and Najha Zigbi-Johnson to explore the compressed 20th century as a formative, in-between space. Across artistic registers, they engaged with archives, excavated overlooked genealogies, and rehearsed speculative modes of citation and annotation, tracing new networks, collaborations, and Afro-diasporic relations. The intensive reimagined and activated Okwui Enwezor’s 2001–2002 exhibition The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994, raising key questions: What becomes possible when African political and aesthetic thought is taken on its own terms—not as an extension, supplement, or proxy? And how might new forms of relation across geographies arise from a shared commitment to difference, rather than a desire to collapse it?

Last week, we welcomed Jonathan Chambalin, a multidisciplinary artist, photographer, and researcher, to G.A.S. Lagos as a recipient of the G.A.S. Fellowship Award 2026. Based in Lagos, Jonathan works across installation, cinemagraphs, sound art, painting, photography, and kinetic sculpture. His practice explores how everyday Nigerian materials and craft processes can be transformed into works that examine social, cultural, and environmental relationships, with a focus on labour and sustainability.