In June 2025, G.A.S. Foundation announced a partnership with the Finnish Cultural Foundation to support two fully funded eight-week residencies for Finnish or Finland-based art practitioners. Hosted across G.A.S. Lagos and the G.A.S. Farm House in Ikise, the programme offers artists and cultural practitioners time and space to develop research and creative projects within Nigeria’s dynamic cultural landscape. Founded in 2017, the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s residency programme has become one of Europe’s largest international residency networks, spanning multiple locations across the world. Through its partnership with G.A.S. Foundation, the programme expands to the African continent for the first time in 2026.

At the 61st Venice Biennale, curated by Koyo Kouoh under the title In Minor Keys, the presence of Guest Artists Space Foundation feels especially resonant. While many presentations within Venice unfold through spectacle, monumentality, or national assertion, G.A.S. Foundation enters the exhibition through a quieter but deeply affecting register—one grounded in listening, collective memory, process, and shared experience.

As the Biennale explores art as a form of learning, Art Basel’s inaugural Koyo Kouoh Fellow, Aisha Aliyu-Bima, reflects on the grassroots organizations shaping a new generation of curators and artists across Africa.

GUEST Artists Space Foundation (G.A.S.) is set to take part in the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Koyo Kouoh. The exhibition, titled ‘In Minor Keys’, will open for preview audiences from May 6 to 8. British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare started G.A.S. in 2019. The foundation encourages international cultural exchange through residencies, research, and collaboration across different fields. G.A.S. runs two sites in Nigeria: one in Lagos and another in Ikise, Ogun State. These locations give artists space to experiment, reflect, and develop their work over time.

On April 23rd, 2026, G.A.S. Lagos hosted Ecosystem Meet-Up, a peer learning and networking session presented as part of Archive Fever II: Stewarding Art Archives in Practice, developed in collaboration with the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA). The event was organised as an associate programme of the AAL Lab and Affiliates Network.

On April 24th, G.A.S. Lagos hosted Seeding Futures - Cultural Infrastructure Beyond the Institution in collaboration with Achille Tenkiang, founder and director of the Baldwin Institute. The convening, which explored the infrastructures of Black art and cultural memory, was held as an associate event of the AAL Lab and Affiliates Network, of which the Baldwin Institute is a member.

Earlier this month, we welcomed Kim M. Reynolds, a U.S. writer, educator, maker and recipient of the G.A.S. Fellowship Award 2026, for an eight-week at the G.A.S. Farm House in Ikiṣẹ. Her multidisciplinary practice spans research, literature, culinary arts, and food history, with a focus on pan-Africanism, ritual, social justice, and arts movements across the African continent and its diaspora. She is also the founder of Home Spice, a culinary project tracing the history of capsicum in Black cuisines through writing and cooking.

Akir Hall, a London-based biodesigner, material researcher, and recipient of the G.A.S. Fellowship Award 2026, joins us for an eight-week residency at the G.A.S. Farm House in Ikiṣẹ. His interdisciplinary practice spans textiles, craft, research, design, and ecology, exploring the intersection of biotechnology, artisanal craft, and regenerative design. Working with bacteria and fungi, he grows biomaterials that are later shaped, dyed, and finished using traditional techniques to create lighting and homeware objects that bridge heritage craft and future-facing material innovation.

Earlier this month, we welcomed Yoma Emore, a multidisciplinary artist and a recipient of the G.A.S. Fellowship Award 2026, for a residency at G.A.S. Lagos. Based in Lagos, her artistic practice spans textiles, embroidery, hand-felting, and printmaking. Rooted in personal and collective memory, her work draws on familial archives and transnational histories to treat material as a living site where past narratives resurface and transform.

In December 2025, G.A.S. Foundation, in partnership with the Yinka Shonibare Foundation, announced the call for the fourth edition of the G.A.S. Fellowship Award. This year, the award offered multiple fully funded residencies, including two slots dedicated to outstanding emerging African artists at the G.A.S. Farm House in Ikise under the African-Based and Diaspora Creatives category.

On April 16th, 2026 G.A.S. Lagos hosted a networking dinner supported by Frieze, a leading global contemporary art organization, recognized for its art fairs, publications and digital presence. Conceived to place Frieze in dialogue with Lagos, the gathering also introduced guests to the work of G.A.S. Foundation, creating space for exchange across local and international contexts.