Tracian Meikle 2022-23
Tracian Meikle is a Jamaican curator, educator and artist most recently based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, who focuses on blackness, place-making and community building. She is the co-founder of Amsterdam Black Women – a collective committed to creating a nurturing and safe space for black women seeking community. As a moderator, Meikle has led conversations with numerous thinkers and artists, including Lola Shoneyin and Angela Davis. Most recently, she was a part of the W139 exhibition, “That Those Beings be not Being”, as a part of the creative duo, the WILD – which serves as a laboratory on black fugitivity rooted in art and literature. She is a part of the 8th Asiko Art School cohort, the critical residency space for professional artists and curators from across the African continent and diaspora.
Fidelis Joseph
2021
Fidelis Joseph creates paintings which reflect life experiences, events, and the mythical in confluence. Inspired by daily situations and encounters, his large-scale oil paintings draw from basic and necessary elements of the human experience including oppression, depression, sexuality, loneliness, anxiety and also, love. His work leans towards abstraction as he wants the unconscious--as a place without boundaries or a fixed destination--to guide his creative process.
Born in 1989 in Adamawa State, Joseph studied at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he majored in painting (BFA, 2017). He has exhibited in several groups shows including: Kaduna Art Fair organized by the National Gallery of Art Abuja (2017); The Maker Lab (2018) and Collective Rendition (2019) organized by African Artists' Foundation; and Rele Gallery's Young Contemporaries (2019). His second solo exhibition, In Search of Home, opens this month in Ikoyi, presented by PHÍLOS and curated by Kadara Enyeasi.
Taiwo Aiyedogbon
2021
During the residency, Taiwo Aiyedogbon will explore installation as a site of mental and emotional healing. Through her creative research she will look at how environment facilitates interaction between diverse audiences with a specific focus on ritual as enacted in public space.
Aiyedogbon explores a variety of methods in her work including painting, experimental drawing, sculpture, installation and performance art. Her works often touch upon current issues related to politics and the environment in the city of Lagos. In 2017, she graduated from the Department of Fine Art at the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos. She has participated in exhibitions and performances including: Flip, Kumasi, Ghana, 2019; Mirror Mirror at ArtX Lagos Performance Pavilion, 2019; Ipele at The National Museum, Lagos, 2017; Threshold as part of the inaugural Lagos Biennial, 2017; and African Time, Malmo, Sweden, 2015.
Adeju Thompson
Artist in Residence 2021
Fashion designer Adeju Thompson, founder of Lagos Space Programme, will explore the dyeing technique of Adire, investigating its profound history and practice through which the traditional artist engaged with the medium as a process of storytelling for themselves and the community. During the residency Thompson will build upon their exploration of contemporary and archival symbols within the Lagos Space Programme 'Post-Adire' canon.
Thompson was educated in fashion design in England, and moved back to Nigeria in 2013. They worked at Lagos-based womenswear brand Maki Oh, while creating their own capsule collections that were presented at concept store Stranger Lagos. Founded in 2018, Lagos Space Programme produces trans-seasonal genderless collections with designs that challenge obsolete norms around blackness, African design, masculinity and beauty. In 2020, Thompson was selected as one of the top eight designers at Arise Fashion Week. In January 2021 the label showcased its collection at Milan Fashion Week and they have most recently been shortlisted for the LVMH Prize.