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.

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?

In December 2025, G.A.S. Foundation, in partnership with Yinka Shonibare Foundation, launched the fourth edition of the G.A.S. Fellowship Award. This year’s call, the largest to date, included multiple categories for fully funded residencies at G.A.S. Lagos. Residency A was initially designed to support two emerging Nigerian artists, while Residency B was dedicated to one art writer based in Nigeria or the diaspora.

Guest Artists Space (G.A.S.) Foundation is pleased to announce its participation in the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Koyo Kouoh. Since its inception in 2019 by Yinka Shonibare CBE, G.A.S. has been dedicated to facilitating international cultural exchange and supporting creative practices through residencies, collaboration and educational initiatives. Its programmes operate across two sites in Nigeria; a purpose-built creative space in Lagos and another on a sustainable and regenerative-focused farm with an artist’s house and studio in Ikise, Ogun state. Together these spaces offer distinct yet interconnected contexts for research, critical thinking, experimentation, and sustained artistic development. Committed to expanding access and opportunity within the arts, G.A.S. supports the creation of new work while fostering dialogue across various cultures and disciplines. Rooted in the hyper-local ecosystems in which it operates, the Foundation functions as an agile, non-hierarchical platform for experimentation which invites artists and thinkers to test ideas, build meaningful local and international networks, and engage urgent social and cultural questions. Its programme encompasses research on food and ecological systems, alternative models of education and institution building, and creative and social infrastructure.