West Africa’s emerging GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) is forging new pathways for preserving, producing, and reinterpreting African heritage and contemporary knowledge. Lagos, as a leading cultural capital, is at the heart of this momentum.

Yinka Shonibare Foundation’s Re:assemblages Symposium and Lagos Tour serve as a new platform for institutional dialogue, co-creation, and collaboration, advancing the future of West African cultural infrastructure. Delegates gain privileged access to Lagos’s layered artistic and archival ecosystems, engaging directly with the people, places, and practices shaping African arts and memory institutions.

Participation is a high-impact institutional investment in capacity-building, international collaboration, and knowledge exchange. Delegates are expected to return with actionable insights and strategic outcomes, extending the value of their experience through internal dissemination and long-term institutional application.

G.A.S. is pleased to partner with the Finnish Cultural Foundation to provide two fully funded, eight-week residencies, which will be awarded to Finnish or Finland-based artists, curators, or writers. The selected residents will primarily be housed in Lagos, with the possibility of spending a shorter time at the G.A.S. Farm House in Ijebu. The opportunity is open to practitioners across various career stages, working in the visual arts, literature, curatorial practice, or intersecting disciplines, who engage with themes of material culture, ecology, and archives within a dynamic transnational context. 

On 27 May 2025, the Yinka Shonibare Foundation convened a Private View and guided tour for patrons and alumni at The Africa Centre, London, spotlighting the latest iteration of the travelling exhibition 'in transit under another sky'. The event marked a significant moment in the trajectory of a project that emerged from Art Exchange: Moving Image, a dynamic curatorial development programme dedicated to amplifying the voices of early-career curators from Sub-Saharan Africa. The event also formed part of the British Council’s UK/Kenya Season of Culture 2025, situating the exhibition within a wider transnational arts ecology. A post-tour conversation between exhibiting artists SCARLETTMOTIFF and Larry Achiampong further deepened the discursive space of the evening, foregrounding themes of mobility, identity, and cinematic practice across diasporic and continental African contexts.

We are pleased to announce the 2025–26 edition of Re:assemblages, a dynamic, multi-year programme designed to foster collaboration and experimentation across African art library collections. This ambitious initiative reimagines the stewardship and activation of African and Afro-diasporic art archives, and will result in a rich constellation of international convenings, symposia, micro-publications, and a research intensive.

We are delighted to present the latest achievements from our G.A.S. Foundation alumni, whose visionary practices continue to shape contemporary art globally. From prestigious appointments and innovative residencies to compelling exhibitions and commissions, our alumni exemplify critical engagement, interdisciplinary exploration, and meaningful cultural interventions. Their diverse approaches, rooted in queer-feminist methodologies, decolonial frameworks, ecological consciousness, and diasporic narratives, underline the Foundation's commitment to nurturing artistic voices that challenge boundaries and reimagine collective futures. Join us in celebrating their exceptional contributions to contemporary discourse and cultural transformation.